Defending the (Lutheran) Faith: Abraham Calov at the University of Wittenberg, 1650–86

Even after the 30 Years War, the Lutheran universities of eastern Germany had by no means completed the process of confessionalization. They faced a Calvinist Elector and his educational institutions in Brandenburg, the remnants of anti-Trinitarian sects such as the Socinians in Poland, and burgeoning Pietism in their midst. Using the University of Wittenberg -- and its theology faculty -- in the second half of the seventeenth century as a case study, this paper will examine the tactics that the university, and particularly Abraham Calov, its rector and _professor primarius_ of theology, employed to counter what they perceived as grave threats to the Lutheran confession.