The famous debate between Johann Eck and Andreas von Karlstadt and Martin Luther in Leipzig, supposedly to clarify but was deliberately planned to discredit Luther's new found theology and to force him into declaring anti-papal admissions. The debate cleared the air both for Luther and for his enemies what was at stake in their respective positions, and paved the way for Luther's condemnation at the Diet of Worm the following year.
The debate, organized by Eck, was supposed to have been—like Luther's original Ninety-Seven Theses—a subject of scholarly debate and Luther attended hoping to vindicate or, at least, to clarify, his position. Instead of the sobriety of academia he had expected, Luther arrived to a scene of "festive adolescent aggression customary in large-scale encounters between universities committed to detesting each other" (D. MacCulloch). In the course of things, the debate between Eck and Karlstadt turned out to be non-events and largely forgotten (both had claimed victory). When Luther, whose participation had been approved at the last minute, entered into the fray, Eck quickly and craftily pressed the debate in the direction of papal authority and obedience and, in the process, Luther was forced to admit that even Jan Hus (whom the Catholic Church had declared a heretic) had been a true Christian and that the pope was not infallible. Though not what Luther had wanted out of the debate, his defiance against papal authority became its most significant outcome. "As the sound and fury of Leipzig receded Luther would build these positions into the bedrock of his emerging ecclesiology. Leipzig was also a defining moment for many in the first generation of the Reformation, the point at which they defiantly affirmed the Wittenberg positions or definitely stepped back. It was also the Reformation's first great moment of public theater. The traditional esoteric rituals of academic discourse had found a large new audience that went far beyong the theologically informed. Not just in Germany, but the wider international scholarly community began to see that something very profound was stirring in the north" (A. Pettegree).
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