{{Short description|Process during the Protestant Reformation}} {{Refimprove|date=September 2021}} {{expand German|date=November 2017}} {{use mdy dates|date=November 2021}} {{use American English|date=November 2021}}
In [[Protestant Reformation]] history, '''confessionalization''' is the parallel processes of "confession-building" taking place in Europe between the [[Peace of Augsburg]]<ref>* {{cite journal |last=Lotz-Heumann |first=Ute |author-link=Ute Lotz-Heumann|title=The Concept of "Confessionalization": a Historiographical Paradigm in Dispute |journal=Memoria y Civilización |volume=21 |date=12 November 2018 |pages=103–126 |doi=10.15581/001.4.33834 |s2cid=55405003|url=https://revistas.unav.edu/index.php/myc/article/view/33834/28969|doi-access=free |hdl=10171/9155 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> (1555) and the [[Thirty Years' War]] (1618–1648). For most of this time, there was a nominal peace in the [[Holy Roman Empire]] between the [[Protestant]] and [[Catholic]] [[Confession of faith|confessions]] as both competed to establish their faith more firmly with the population of their respective areas. This confession-building occurred through "social-disciplining," as there was a stricter enforcement by the churches of their particular rules for all aspects of life in both Protestant and Catholic areas. This had the consequence of creating distinctive confessional identities that influenced church dogma, faith formation, liturgy, and the development of universities.
The German historian [[Ernst Walter Zeeden]] first described the phenomenon of 'confession building' (''Konfessionsbildung'') in the 1950s. In the 1970s, [[Wolfgang Reinhard]]{{sfn|Reinhard|1989}} and [[Heinz Schilling]]{{sfn|Schilling|1992}} further developed these ideas in parallel,{{sfn|Marshall|2012|pp=125-126}} applying their ideas to church-state formation in Roman Catholic and Lutheran{{sfn|Berentsen|1998}} contexts in the Holy Roman Empire.
[[Calvin's Geneva]] is also a model case for the confessional era because of its high degree of social control, unity and homogeneity under one expression of a reformed Christian faith.{{cn|date=September 2025}} The Genevan model was informed by an interpretation of [[humanism|Erasmus' humanism]]. The reformation had shown the independent character of northern Europe to resist acceptance to Catholic orthodoxy and thus called for an end to the [[Corpus Christianum]]. The new model sought to establish a decentralized Christian community, rooted in the belief that one's own interpretative [[theology]] was correct and sufficient.
Confessionalization was supported by monarchs and rulers in general, because after the Reformation had brought control over their territories' churches into their hands, they could exercise more power over their subjects by enforcing strict religious obedience. The main tool for the enforcement of these rules were "police-regulations". These were behavior codes for religious, social and economic life to which the common citizen had to oblige under threat of severe punishment.
Increasingly, the secular governments (sometimes in cooperation or conflict with the churches they controlled) provided material relief for the poor and needy, and in return the state demanded obedience and increased taxes from its subjects. Thus, confessionalization is often described as a developmental stage towards both the [[Enlightened absolutism|absolutist states]] of the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as the modern [[welfare state]].
[[Nancy Shields Kollmann]] used the term "confessionalization" to refer to the religious arbitration and control used in the [[Russian Empire]] to manage the activity of non-Orthodox religions such as Catholicism, Lutheranism, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism. [[Tsarist]] Russia, a multi-confessional empire with one state religion, banned the proselytization of other faiths to [[Eastern Orthodoxy|Orthodox Christians]]. However, the tsarist administration supported centralizing institutions within other religions (such as the [[Orenburg Assembly]]) insofar as they would aid in local administration and were allied with the state.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Kollmann|first=Nancy Shields|title=The Russian Empire 1450–1801|date=2017|isbn=978-0-19-928051-3|edition=1st|location=Oxford, United Kingdom|pages=404, 407–408|oclc=969962873}}</ref>
The concept of the [[Long Reformation]], developed largely in English historiography, parallels confessionalization in highlighting the protracted and multifaceted nature of religious change, though it has been applied chiefly to England rather than to continental Europe.<ref>Nicholas Tyacke, ed., ''England’s Long Reformation, 1500–1800'' (London: Routledge, 1998); Eamon Duffy, "The Long Reformation: Catholicism, Protestantism and the Multiformity of Reform," Neale Lecture, University College London, 1998.</ref>
== Bibliography == * {{cite web|url=http://www.h-net.org/~german/discuss/Confessionalization/Confess_index.htm |title=Confessionalization forum|website=H-German|year=2005|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120716185437/http://www.h-net.org/~german/discuss/Confessionalization/Confess_index.htm|archive-date=16 July 2012}} * {{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Germany/Lutheran-church-organization-and-confessionalization |title=Lutheran church organization and confessionalization|encyclopedia=Britannica Online|first=William |last=Berentsen|year=1998}} * [https://www.doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2004.00100.x Confessionalization: Reformation, Religion, Absolutism, and Modernity] * Headley, John M. and Hans J. Hillerbrand, eds. (2004). ''Confessionalization in Europe, 1555–1700: Essays in Honor and Memory of Bodo Nischan''. Farnham, Eng: Ashgate. * {{cite book|last=Hsia|first=R. Po-chia|title=Social discipline in the Reformation : Central Europe 1550–1750.|year=1991|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=0-415-01149-3|edition=Paperback}} * {{cite book|first=Wolfgang |last=Reinhard|title=Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and Confessionalization|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1989}} * Rüdiger Grimkowski: Habsburgische Konfessionalisierung und die Josephsverehrung. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft. 52. Jahrgang, Heft 11, 2004, ISSN 044-2828, S. 981–994. * Rüdiger Grimkowski: Michael Willmann. Barockmaler im Dienst der katholischen Konfessionalisierung. Der Grüssauer Josephszyklus. Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-89998-050-9. * {{cite journal |last=Marshall |first=Peter |title=THE NAMING OF PROTESTANT ENGLAND |journal=Past & Present |issue=214 |date=February 2012 |pages=87-128 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41416889 |access-date=27 September 2025|author-link=Peter Marshall (historian)}} * {{cite book|author-link=Heinz Schilling|first=Heinz |last=Schilling|title=Religion, Political Culture and the Emergence of Early Modern Society: Essays in German and Dutch History|location=Leiden|publisher=Brill|year=1992}}
== References == {{reflist}}
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[[Category:16th-century Protestantism]] [[Category:Historiography of Christianity]]