Liturgical struggle

The Liturgical Struggle (Swedish: Liturgiska striden) was the name for the period from 1574 until 1593 in Sweden, when there was a struggle about the confession of faith and liturgy of the Church of Sweden, brought about by the attempts of King John III of Sweden to make the Swedish church take a mediating position between Catholicism and Protestantism by holding only certain doctrines and practices which could be established immediately in either the Word of God or patristic writings, similar to what had once been imposed on the Lutheran areas in Germany during the Augsburg Interim. The struggle began in 1574, when the king introduced some new rules in the liturgy which were not in accordance with Lutheran doctrine and practice, followed by his publication of the Liturgia Svecanæ Ecclesiæ catholicæ & orthodoxæ conformia commonly called the "Red Book", which re-introduced a number of Catholic customs. The Liturgical Struggle ended with the Lutheran confession of faith at the Uppsala Synod in 1593.