Dear Mr. Remus,

It is with great pleasure that I answer your mail. In fact, Martin Remus was deeply involved in the confessional disputes between Lutherans and so-called Crypto-Calvinists at Gdansk around 1605. Remus was a follower of Jacob Fabricius, and thus belonged to the allegedly Calvinist fraction among the Gdansk ministers that had come under heavy attack from orthodox Lutherans, both theologians and lay burghers, since 1603/04. This was why the Council proposed, as a compromise, in 1605 to transfer both Fabricius and Martin Remus to other, less important urban churches.

It would, however, be difficult to classify Remus simply as a Calvinist. The matter has to be interpreted against the background of the specific history of the Reformation in Royal Prussia. Prussian Crypto-Calvinism originated in the moderate Protestant theology of Melanchton who had tried to mediate between Lutheran orthodoxy and Calvinism. Those who, at Gdansk, were eventually identified as Calvinists were basically followers of Melanchton, and represented the more 'enlightened' and more intellectual milieu of Protestant theology.

Archival sources at Danzig give substantial evidence of the confessional history of the town around 1600, and of the individual actors involved. In particular, the position 300 R/Pp 82 of the Archiwum Panstwowe Gdansk contains brief biographies of all members of the urban ministry in that period. Please feel free to contact me again if you wish to receive more detailed information.

With best wishes Michael G. Müller

Professor Muller is a scholar who writes on the Reformation in West Prussia