“That still doesn’t mean that you can afford to spend a week listening to them. Much less two weeks. Or three. Or a month!”
Ed continued unperturbed. “Point Three. More generally, the result of this specific decision about this church just outside of Grantville is going to be a weather vane about the overall direction that the Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt consistory is going to take. If they do make an exception from strict Flacian orthodoxy for the church serving Grantville—or the churches, since Count Ludwig Guenther is building another one on the other side of town to take up some of the overflow—then he’ll be getting requests for exemption from other congregations in the county, and he knows it. If the theology faculty at Jena swallows hard and accepts an exemption in this county, they know that similar requests will be coming in from every other little city, county, and dukedom in Thuringia. What’s more…”
Mike groaned. “There can’t be more.”
“Yes, there can be more. There is more. Point Four. Every Lutheran ruler in the CPE is sending a ‘personal observer.’ Which means that they’re sending their chancellors. Gustavus Adolphus is sending a ‘personal observer,’ for Chrissakes! He’s sending Margrave George of Baden-Durlach, and even if the man is old and getting very, very, tired, he’s still been one of the most consistent defenders of the Protestant cause from the very beginning of this war. Don’t count him out just because he lost a battle in 1622. He’s never given up and he’s taken exile rather than compromise with the Imperials.”
Ed paused, then started again. “Listen, Mike. This colloquy is a big deal. Colloquies are academic debates, in a way, but they’re academic debates on steroids. They’re academic debates that affect the real world. If this war wasn’t on, they wouldn’t be sending ‘personal observers.’ They would be coming themselves: John George of Saxony, Wilhelm of Hessen-Kassel—even though he’s a Calvinist himself—George of Hessen-Darmstadt, the Anhalt mini-princes, all of the Saxe-Whatever dukes. Reuss. Probably Brandenburg, even though the elector himself has turned Calvinist like Hessen-Kassel, because he’s taken the unusual measure of not imposing his faith on anyone but the court personnel. Most of his subjects are Lutheran. Maybe even Prussia. The Prussian duke will be sending an observer if he has someone suitable on retainer who can get here in time. Count Anton Guenther of Oldenburg is coming in person, but there has to be something else behind that. If it weren’t for the war, Gustavus Adolphus himself might have come. When the Reformation got started, the Holy Roman Emperor sat in on some of the religious debates.”
Mike looked sour. “It didn’t do the Holy Roman Emperor a lot of good, either. They’ve been having religious wars ever since.”
Ed sighed. “Sometimes, a smaller scale can be more effective. The theologians will debate and discuss. The ‘personal observers’ will listen and report back. And, Point Five. At some point, while the public debate goes on and on, the ‘personal observers’ will get together and pool the collective wisdom of the ‘patrons’ of German Lutheranism about the way to go. If the ‘way to go’ turns out to be maintaining orthodox exclusionism, the different Lutheran parties will be back at each other’s throats and the CPE will fall apart. If it turns out to be enforced mutual coexistence, no matter how much the theologians argue, we’ve maybe got the lever in place with which we can move the rest of Germany when it comes to religious tolerance. Capisce?”
“So the Lutheran princes will tell the Lutheran churches what to do.” Mike pulled a sour face. He knew that he would have to live with the “established church” phenomenon, but he didn’t have to like it.
“For the time being.” Ed leaned back, touching his fingertips to one another in a reflective manner. “There really have been quite a lot of changes in the past century. Lay patrons still appoint ministers to the Lutheran churches—that’s true enough. Connections still help in getting an appointment—that’s true, too. But they can’t appoint just any ne’er-do-well cousin who needs a sinecure. Not anymore. They pick off a list of church-approved candidates who’ve finished a theological course, sometimes at a university and sometimes at a seminary, and who have been examined and approved by their own church board for the principality—the consistory, it’s called, mainly, or sometimes the general synod. There’s no rule about what it’s called. It works pretty much the same in the Calvinist principalities. Actually, a lot of it has rubbed off on us Catholics, as well. Compared to the middle ages, one thing that Europe has now is a clergy that’s a lot more literate, a lot more educated, and a lot more committed to the job.”