Peter Meiderlin, the pacificator

by Stephen J. March

Perhaps the most famous maxim for relationships between Christians from different traditions is:

In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.

This maxim appears in almost every call for Christians to live at peace and in unity with each other. However, it is only recently that I discovered the origin of this famous quote.

Although it has been attributed to various Christian authors, it has recently been traced with certainty to one 'Peter Meiderlin'. He was an otherwise unknown 17th century German divine.

In 1627, at the height of the Thirty Years' War in Europe, Peter Meiderlin published a tract calling for peaceful toleration between the warring Christian factions. It was in this tract that first appeared this now famous sentence, "In a word, I'll say it: if we preserve unity in essentials, liberty in non-essentials, and charity in both, our affairs will be in the best position."

Prof. Philip Schaff states, "It was during the fiercest dogmatic controversies and the horrors of the Thirty Years' War that a prophetic voice whispered to future generations the watchword of Christian peacemakers, which was unheeded in a century of intolerance, and forgotten in a century of indifference, but resounds with increased force in a century of revival and re-union."

The English divine Richard Baxter quoted Meldenius' sentence in a publication dated 1679 and referred to him as 'the pacificator' or peacemaker.

I find it very moving to think that this lone voice, speaking out for peace and unity amongst Christians, originally ignored in the maelstrom of religious hatred and intolerance, comes to be used some 300 years later as the watchword and rallying cry for a world-wide movement of Christians working for unity.

Sometimes God just does beautiful stuff.

God bless you Peter Meiderlin, the pacificator, you are an example to us all.