"An decent behaving neighbour and subject": Johannes Mathesius as German Lutheran Parson and Theologian in Bohemia
Abstract
The study focuses on the activities of the prominent pastor and Reformation writer Johannes Mathesius in the border region between Saxony and Bohemia, emphasising the fact that it was not just a border between two countries and two states, but also two types of ecclesiastical system and different ecclesiastical-political situations. Mathesius' activity belongs to both contexts and can be understood fully only if both sides are taken into account.
The text demonstrates this fact and the possible misunderstandings linked with a one-sided approach by examining two interlinked themes, viewed more or less chronologically throughout the whole period that Mathesius was a pastor in Jáchymov, from around 1530 to the mid-1560s. These were how Mathesius dealt and struggled with the teaching on adiaphora (before, during, and after the Interimistic dispute) and with the issue of obedience or disobedience to the secular authorities (during the Schmalkaldic War and after it).