Lutheran Hymnals as a Reflection of Confessional Identity

This article is about the collective religious identity of Lutherans – liturgical Protestants with a rich musical culture. The study is based on the concept of competing religious discourses formulated by the Russian religious scholar Anatoly Pogasy. Two competing religious discourses emerged in the 16th century, i. e. Lutheran and Reformed (Zwinglian, Calvinistic). The issue is actual because the dialectical interaction of these discourses continues to this day. Hymnals as part of the cultural code of a religious community have a rich semiosis. The main method of this research was a comparative analysis of Lutheran hymnals and hymnals of other Protestant communities. Attention is given to the controversy between Martin Luther and Andreas Karlstadt regarding the reform of worship. It has been determined that the concept of adiaphora is key to Lutheran musical and liturgical discourse. Lutherans make a free, conscious choice to preserve the historic liturgical system: worship practice, system of church books, liturgical calendar. The main markers of Lutheran musical and liturgical identity are: the very fact of the existence of a hymnal, its structure, Gregorian chants, instrumental accompaniment, and dogmatic depth. A definition of a Lutheran hymn in the broad and narrow senses of the word is formulated.