The Augsburg Confession German : Augsburger Bekenntnis , also known as the Augustan Confession or the Augustana from its Latin name, Confessio Augustana , is the primary confession of faith of the Lutheran Church and one of the most important documents of the Protestant Reformation. The Augsburg Confession was written in both German and Latin and was presented by a number of German rulers and free-cities at the Diet of Augsburg on 25 June The Holy Roman Emperor , Charles V , had called on the Princes and Free Territories in Germany to explain their religious convictions in an attempt to restore religious and political unity in the Holy Roman Empire and rally support against the Ottoman invasion in the 16th-century Siege of Vienna.
It is the fourth document contained in the Lutheran Book of Concord. Philipp Melanchthon , Martin Luther , and Justus Jonas had already drafted a statement of their theological views in the Articles of Schwabach in , [ 1 ] when on 21 January , Emperor Charles V issued letters from Bologna , inviting the Imperial Diet to meet in Augsburg on 8 April for the purpose of discussing and deciding various important questions.
Although the writ of invitation was couched in very peaceful language, it was received with suspicion by some of the Protestants. This summary has received the name of the "Torgau Articles". On 3 April, the elector and reformers started from Torgau , and reached Coburg on 23 April.
There, Luther was left behind because he was an outlaw according to the Diet of Worms. The rest reached Augsburg on 2 May. On the journey, Melanchthon worked on a larger draft based on the Torgau articles, and sent this to Luther at Coburg on 11 May, who approved it. Several alterations were suggested to Melanchthon in his conferences with Jonas, the Saxon chancellor Christian Beyer , the conciliatory Christopher von Stadion , bishop of Augsburg , and the imperial secretary Alfonso de Valdes.
The emperor had ordered the confession to be presented to him at the next session, 24 June. When the Protestant princes asked that it be read in public, their petition was refused, and efforts were made to prevent the public reading of the document altogether.
