End of exhibition:
28. January 2018
Faith and crisis
With over 30,000 inhabitants, the Hanseatic city was one of the largest cities in the Old Empire. However, the power of the sovereign, Archbishop Albrecht of Brandenburg, limited the city's endeavours for independence. In addition, the canons exercised their own jurisdiction in the area of cathedral freedom in the south of the city. Luther's protest against the sale of indulgences played no part in these conflicts. However, his demands for the renewal of the church struck a chord with the times. In June 1524, Luther preached several times in Magdeburg and the six Old Town parishes elected Protestant clergymen as their pastors in the same year. Magdeburg was thus the first major city in the empire to be won over to the Reformation.
In the Protestant alliance
Magdeburg was one of the founding members of the Schmalkaldic League, a pact of support between the Protestant estates. After the defeat of the Protestants in the Battle of Mühlberg in 1547, Emperor Charles V proclaimed the Eight over Magdeburg. The city refused to submit and rejected the religious law issued by the Emperor, the Interim, which ordered a far-reaching return to Catholic religious rules.
Battle for the Herrgotts Kanzlei
Magdeburg became a place of refuge for Lutheran religious refugees. From here, they spread their writings and made the city widely known as "Lord God's Chancellery". The emperor wanted to break the resistance of the Magdeburgers by military means. The bloody small-scale war finally ended with a peaceful capitulation that left Magdeburg with its Protestant faith.
Confessional consolidation
Against the resistance of the theologians, Magdeburg's political leadership achieved a reconciliation of interests with the canons. The introduction of Lutheran services in the cathedral and the archbishop's conversion to the Protestant confession restored harmony between the old town of Magdeburg and the archbishopric. In 1577, Protestant theologians from all over the empire decided on a work of unification in the Berge monastery outside the city gates, which also settled the inner-Protestant dispute.
