“In obedience to Your Imperial Majesty's wishes, we offer, in this matter of religion, the Confession of our preachers and of ourselves, showing what manner of doctrine from the Holy Scriptures and the pure Word of God has been up to this time set forth in our lands, dukedoms, dominions, and cities, and taught in our churches.”
Thus begins the preface to the Augsburg Confession (Confessio Augustana), a statement delivered by Philip Melanchthon and the princes of Saxony to the Emperor Charles V on 25 June, 1530, in the German city of Augsburg. Charles V, keenly aware of the threat posed by Turkish troops along his borders, convened the Diet in the hopes of re-uniting Catholics and Protestants and thus strengthening his military capabilities. Reunification was not to be. Yet, Augsburg did eventually provoke peace between the two with the publication of the Peace of Augsburg in September of the same year.
“The ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Augsburg Confession, dogma, appointment of ministers, church ordinances, and ministries hitherto practiced (but apart from all the rights of Electors, Princes and Estates colleges and monasteries to taxes in money or tithes) shall from now cease and the Augsburg Confession shall be left to the free and untrammeled enjoyment of their religion, ceremonies, appointment of ministers, as is stated in a subsequent separate article, until the final transaction of religion will take place.” (Peace of Augsburg §20)
Interestingly enough, in an ecumenical celebration held today to mark the 450-year anniversary of the declaration in Augsburg, the region’s governing authority, Bundespräsident Horst Köhler, did not describe any sort of peace between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Rather, he called the announcement an important step toward the separation of Church and State: "Staat und Kirchen begannen zu lernen, sich nicht gegenseitig durchdringen und instrumentalisieren zu wollen."
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