ABSTRACT
For opponents of Lutheranism, however, the apparent proximity of the Church to Catholicism was a serious cause for concern. It was this imputation that the Lutheran pastor Balthasar Mentzer sought to refute, arguing that he needed ‘to vindicate the Evangelical or Lutheran Church from that most unjust Charge and Suspicion, that she is nearly allied to Popery’.6 Mentzer’s pamphlet was dedicated to the king and celebrated the recent jubilee/bicentenary of the Lutheran Reformation, but it emphasized as well the di erences between that faith and Catholicism. ese included a range of doctrinal and liturgical issues, including the use of religious images, but Mentzer also sought to demonstrate that far from being an ally of Catholicism, Lutheranism was in fact the victim of its persecution, particularly in Hungary.7
