The English Reformation through the prism of «confessionalization»: the potential and limits of application of the german model (W. Reinhard, G. Chilling)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the verification of the universality and empirical adequacy of the German model of confessionalization, developed by W. Reinhard and H. Schilling on the example of the English Reformation. The German paradigm describes the synchronous development of religious institutionalization, social discipline (Sozialdisziplinierung) and territorial state formation of three competing confessions (Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism), enshrined in the principle Cuius regio, eius religio.

The German model was based on the consolidation of dogma (a clear formulation of confessional doctrine - the Book of Concord, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Council of Trent); bureaucratic centralization (the church as an instrument of state administration); strict social discipline (the joint activity of church and state to unify and normalize the behavior of the population through visitations, church courts and compulsory school education, aimed at the formation of a disciplined and loyal subject).

In contrast, the English Reformation (catalyzed by the dynastic crisis of King Henry VIII Tudor) was primarily a «revolution from above», an institutional break with Rome that strengthened royal sovereignty. It included a large-scale secularization of monastic assets and liturgical reform.

The final doctrinal formulation was the document «Thirty-Nine Articles» (1571), which consolidated the unique compromise «Via Media»: Protestant doctrine combined with the preserved episcopal (hierarchical) structure of the Church. Although England used mechanisms of coercion and experienced processes of state centralization, the key limit to the application of the German model lies in its mono-confessional state-church structure and the inconsistency of the confessional course of the Tudors, which allowed internal dissent (Puritans and Catholics) to flourish and weakened efforts towards complete confessional unification of society.

Thus, the German model of the Reformation in England can be applied only with significant modifications and reservations.