Danzig -- Religions - Calvinists (Reformed Church)

In the late 16th and early 17th century the Calvinists were well-integrated into city government in Danzig, while the Lutheran pastors remained fairly isolated. (In 1573 the Polish Confederation in Warsaw determined that confessional tolerance granted to the Lutherans (1557) should be extended to the Reformed Church.) In the 1570s and into the first decade of the 17th century, indigenous, elite tendencies in Danzig (in the City Council and the Gymnasium) tolerated, perhaps even encouraged immigrant Anabaptists, or Mennonites, and Scottish settlers. Still, while the patrician Council and local academics leaned toward the Reformed theology, large portions of the citizenry -- especially in the middle economic stratum -- demonstrated against it. Possibly local craftsmen were also eager to see their rival Dutch or Scottish colleagues banished from town. After the several leaders of the Reformed theology died in the years between 1605 and 1612, the political weight of the Lutherans increased again. In addition, the Polish King Sigismund III let it be known that if the Council continued to favor the Reformed Church he might be forced to intervene in municipal affairs. While technically not binding, a Royal Decree (1612) prohibiting any more Calvinists from holding public office, was in fact followed.

[Michael G. Müller. Zur Frage der Zweiten Reformation in Danzig, Elbing und Thorn. in Heinz Schilling ed., Die reformierte Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland -- Das Problem der "Zweiten Reformation". Wissenschaftliches Symposion des Vereins für Refomationsgeschichte (=Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte #195) Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1986. S 251-265.]
[Michael G. Müller. Zweite Reformation und städtische Autonomie im Königlichen Preußen. Danzig, Elbing und Thorn in der Epoche der Konfessionalisierung (1557-1660). Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997.]