Towards the end of the Thirty Years' War, Andreas Gryphius wrote five tragedies in which the title characters are confronted by adversaries, leading to their agonizing deaths. As a result, all interpreters to this day have been inclined to see most of the protagonists as martyrs. However, a close textual analysis reveals that Gryphius did not portray holy martyrs: all Christian heroes committed serious wrongs. Moreover, they did not die for their faith, but for other, mostly political reasons. Instead, the devout Lutheran Gryphius created a new ideal image, that of the converted Christian of Protestant character. In Habsburg-controlled Silesia, subtle hints at Luther's theology had to suffice in the age of the Counter-Reformation to mark the Protestant orientation in the text. The uniform Lutheran ideal figure thus makes Gryphius' tragedies appear as a cohesive cycle of dramas.