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Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

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Wolfflin, Christoph

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Wolfgang, St.

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is known from the history of the reformation as one of those German princes who fought for the cause of Luther. Born in 1492, he suicceeded his father in 1508. At the Diet of Worms, in 1521, the new doctrine found in him a strong arm and Luther a true friend. In his own country he introduced the reformed doctrine, and was its warmest promoter at. home and abroad. He opposed the emperor, signed in 1529 the protest, at Spenger, and the Augsburg Confession in 1530; and here (at Augsburg) it was that he, together with George of Brandenburg, told the emperor that they would rather give up their heads than follow the procession on Corpus-Christi day. He belonged to the promoters of the League of Smalkald, and the part which he took in the war brought upon him the ban of the empire and the loss of his estate, which was given to the Spaniard Ladrone. On horseback he left his castle in Bernburg, singing Luther's famous battle-song of the reformation "Ein' feste Burg." In 1552 his estates were returned to him, and he died March 23, 1566. See Theol. Universal- lexikon, s.v. (B.P.)