Every year, the lecture welcomes distinguished speakers to Mansfield College to talk about themes relevant to the life and ideas of Adam von Trott – the German diplomat who opposed Hitler.

Adam von Trott, who studied at Mansfield for a term in 1929, was a German diplomat and a central figure in the opposition to Hitler. While at Mansfield, he studied theology and politics. He later wrote that this experience had helped him to learn “what democracy means”.

This year’s Adam von Trott Memorial Lecture will be given by Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University.

His theme will be ‘Luther’s Half-millennium: Then and Now’.

This theme marks the 500th anniversary in 2017 of the Reformation, and celebrates the origins of Mansfield College which was for many years a theological college preparing ordinands for the Ministry of the Congregational and United Reformed Churches.