Von Wittenberg und Nürnberg nach Kronstadt: Die Siebenbürgischen Kirchenordnungen von 1543/47 vor dem Hintergrund ihrer Wurzeln

Abstract In the early phase of the Reformation in Transylvania, two church-regulating texts became particularly important: Johannes Honter’s little Reformation booklet for Kronstadt und Burzenland from 1543 and the church regulations published in print in 1547, which the Universitas Saxonum made binding for the entire area of Saxon law three years later. The essay focuses on these two important texts and analyzes their roots in the Reformation tradition of the Holy Roman Empire and the Swiss Confederation. Wittenberg and Nuremberg stand for two of the possible sources from which the Transylvanian church ordinances could have drawn. In view of more than a century of intensive historiographical debate on these questions, an attempt is made to present the different positions and to check them for plausibility. The influence of Swiss theology, which is important from a church historical perspective, is also analyzed here.