Crypto-Calvinism

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Crypto-Calvinism is a term for inner-Protestant, indeed inner-Lutheran, theological fights during the decades just after the death of Martin Luther. It denotes what was regarded en as a hidden ("crypto" from "kryptein", Greek for "to hide") belief in Calvinism, i.e. the doctrines of John Calvin, by members of the Lutheran church.

Before his death in 1546, Luther warned his followers against disunity. After his death, under pressure from the forces of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V, Lutherans following the leadership of Philip Melanchthon, Luther's close associate, chose a path of compromise with Roman Catholicism in order to appease those in power. Other Lutherans, chiefly those gathered in the city of Magdeburg, under the leadership of Matthias Flacius, strongly opposed compromises with Rome.

In the 1570s, after the death of Melanchthon in 1560, the inclination of a number of professors at Wittenberg toward Calvinism was fully exposed and several were exiled. In 1574, the famous medical scholar and oftentimes Rector of the University of Wittenberg, Caspar Peucer, not incidentally Melanchthon's son-in-law, was captured and jailed in the Königstein fortress for Crypto-Calvinism for 12 years.

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Bibliography

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