It was due, largely at any rate, to the fact that Germany at this time was under sway of the Lutheran revolt against the papacy.

So effective was the opposition that the Gregorian calendar did not come into vogue in Germany until the year 1699.

It may be added that England, under stress of the same manner of prejudice, held out against the new reckoning until the year 1751, while Russia does not accept it even now.
As the Protestant leaders thus opposed the papal attitude in a matter of so practical a character as the calendar, it might perhaps have been expected that the Lutherans would have had a leaning towards the Copernican theory of the universe, since this theory was opposed by the papacy.

Such, however, was not the case.

Luther himself pointed out with great strenuousness, as a final and demonstrative argument, the fact that Joshua commanded the sun and not the earth to stand still; and his followers were quite as intolerant towards the new teaching as were their ultramontane opponents.