ABSTRACT
The activities of imperial legation chapels in early modern Protestant states constitute an often overlooked theme of Central European historiography. The permanent imperial embassies were created on the existing network of mission stations supported by the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith from the resources of which the priesthood was largely financed. In the first two decades following the Thirty Years’ War, the influence of the Holy See and the emperor became separated in terms of foreign-confessional policy, expressed by the imperial court in particular in the selection of new legation chaplains and the assertion of influence over their activities. In the Kingdom of Sweden, the first imperial legation chapel was founded relatively late, in 1667 during the residency of Hermann von Basserode. A qualitatively different situation occurred at the end of the seventeenth century after 1697, when the elector, Friedrich August, converted to Catholicism in connection with his election as Polish king.
