INTERIM, in the history of the reformation, the name given to certain edicts of the German emperor for the regulation of religious and ecclesiastical matters -` in the mean time" (Lat. interim), till they could be decided by a general council. The first is the Thais bon interim, the result of the deliberations of a commission appointed during the diet of Ritisbon (Regensburg) in 1541, of which Eck, Pflug, and Gropper were the Roman Catholic, and Melanehtlion, Bucer, and Pistorius the Protestant members. On the greater number of doctrinal points the commission found it passible to agree on terms which might be deemed consistent with the views of both patties; but as to the sacraments and the power of the church, the differences were irreconcilable. By the Protestants in general, the whOle movement was looked on as a scheme to entrap them into a formal return to the church of Rome. At the next diet, at Augsburg in 1548, a new interim
was by the emperor's command prepared by Pflug, Belding (Sidonius). and Agricola. It is called the Augsburg interim.. In it the use of the cup by the laity, the marriage of priests, and some other minor things, were conceded to the Protestants; but it met with very general opposition, particularly in the n. of Germany, and was revoked in 1559. By the exertions of the elector Maurice of Saxony a third interim, the Leipsie interim, was adopted at the diet of Leipsie Dec. 22, 1548, which guarded the Protestant creed, but admitted great part of the Roman Catholic ceremonial, and recognized the power of popes and bishops when not abused. But the offense given to the more zealous Protest ants by this interim, which Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, and Major supported, led to divi sion in the Protestant church.