Book of Concord | Description, Lutheranism, History, & Facts | Britannica (original) (raw)

Book of Concord, collected doctrinal standards of Lutheranism in Germany, published in German (June 25, 1580) and in Latin (1584). Its publication concluded a 30-year effort to heal the divisions that had broken out in the Lutheran movement after Martin Luther’s death and to keep the Lutheran churches from being absorbed into an all-Protestant union. After two political conferences (in 1558 and 1561) failed to produce agreement, the Lutheran rulers in Germany entrusted the project to several theologians, who produced the Formula of Concord, essentially an interpretation of the Augsburg Confession (a basic confession of the Lutheran faith), written primarily by Jakob Andreä and Martin Chemnitz and put in final form in 1577. The Book of Concord was subsequently compiled. It was not adopted in total by all Lutheran churches, but it has remained the standard of orthodox Lutheranism.

It consists of: (1) a preface signed by 51 electors, bishops, princes, and nobles of the Holy Roman Empire and representatives of 35 free imperial cities; (2) the three ecumenical creeds (Apostolic, Nicene, and Athanasian); (3) the Unaltered Augsburg Confession (1530) and (4) its Apology (1531); (5) the Schmalkaldic Articles (1536–37); (6) Philipp Melanchthon’s Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope (1537); (7) Martin Luther’s Small and Large Catechisms (1529); (8) the Formula of Concord (1577); and (9) the Catalogue of Testimonies (1580), a supplement of citations from the writings of early Church Fathers.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Melissa Petruzzello.