A reason for the witchcraft persecutions in the region was the fact that Christianity was weak. Christianity had been forced upon the indigenous population by the German Baltic elite, and Paganism was still widely popular and practiced in secrecy by the peasantry. This was resented by the German language clergy, nobility and merchant class, and witch trials were instrumental in the persecution of Paganism and efforts to ensure religious conformity and safeguard Christianity. In 1637, the Superintendent of the Livonian Church stated that the Consistory should persecute the widespread "Paganism, witchcraft and idolatry" still practiced by the peasantry and ordered the local vicars to report if the peasants still gathered in holy places in nature to worship Pagan gods and perform sacrifices. In 1667-68, the Church Commission performed an investigation in Southern Estonia and reported that in almost every parish, there were Pagans who gathered in holy Pagan places or houses and celebrated Pagan gods to whom they drank and performed rituals under the supervision of certain men and women who acted as Pagan priests and priestesses. Many peasants were hostile toward Christianity and refused to go to church. This Paganism was a cause of great dislike by the Christian German clergy and the German landlords, who referred to the Pagan priests and priestesses as wizards and witches and used the witch trials to exterminate Paganism and enforce Christianity upon the peasantry.
