ABSTRACT
Pietism emerged in the late seventeenth century as a movement for reform within Lutheran Protestantism. Pietism's influence was felt in most of the Protestant regions of German Europe, but it took a highly distinctive form in Brandenburg-Prussia. Philipp Jakob Spener's outspoken condemnation of interconfessional disputation in the reformist essay Pia Desideria must have endeared him to the Calvinist court of Brandenburg-Prussia. The 'adoption' of the Pietist movement by Elector Frederick III and his chief officials must first of all be set in the context of the peculiar historical situation of the Brandenburg monarchy. The second generation of Pietists used their dominant positions within key institutions to silence or remove opponents, much as the Lutheran Orthodox had done in an earlier era. This position of unchallenged dominance could not be sustained in the longer term. It was undermined both by changes within the movement and by transformations in the political and intellectual environment.
