The public debates in Protestant church magazines throughout the nineteenth century up to the adoption of the Weimar Constitution demonstrate that the relationship between church and state was widely discussed in its various forms and from multiple perspectives. Three strands were particularly significant: church-state relations in general from an external perspective, complementary to this the constitution of the church as an internal perspective, and the relationship between church and school. Overall, it is the debates which began after the Congress in Vienna in 1815 and its Final Act of 1820 which reflect a process that can be described as a gradual departure from church rule institutionalized by the Reformation which was accompanied by the formation of Protestant ecclesial identity.