This week in Christian history: John Sung dies, Evangelical Alliance formed, Diet of Odense
The Diet of Odense grants tolerance to Lutherans – Aug. 20, 1527
This week marks the anniversary of when the Diet of Odense, a meeting of Danish noblemen and clergy that decided to grant religious tolerance to Lutherans, officially recessed.
About a decade after the start of the Protestant Reformation, the group of bishops and nobles met with Danish King Frederick I at Odense, in response to various issues, including concerns about the monarch’s protection of Lutheran pastors.
“Sympathetic toward the Lutherans, he said, ‘The council is well aware that the Holy Christian faith is free, and that none should be deprived of their conscious faith. I am king and judge over the life and property of the kingdom but not over souls.’ Far from persecuting the Lutherans, he would protect ‘all who preached what was godly and Christian,’” explained Christianity.com.
“As for forcing monks to return to their monasteries or to give up their wives (another demand of the bishops) he replied, ‘that was their own business, for which they must answer to God: he would neither bid it nor forbid it.’”
Eventually, Lutheranism would become the dominant religious group in Denmark.
