Abstract:
The work of Samuel Schelwig (1643–1715), the pastor of the Church of the Holy
Trinity (Trinitatiskirche) and the director of the Athenäum gymnasium in Gdańsk,
had a major influence on the confessional situation in Gdaňsk at the end of the
seventeenth century against the consistorial councilman of Berlin’s Church of
St Nicholas (Nikolaikirche), Philipp Jacob Spener, the leading representative
of Pietism. The dispute began in 1693 with the publication of Gründliche und
wohlgesetzte Bedenken von der Pietisterei by Johann Benedict Carpzov, which was
written at the Faculty of Theology in Leipzig. Schelwig penned the foreword to the
work, putting himself in opposition to Pietism. For the same reason, he came into
conflict in Gdańsk itself with Constantin Schütz, the pastor of the Church of the
Virgin Mary, who advocated Pietism from the pulpit.