Draft:Leonhard Kaiser
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Leonhard Kaiser, also Kaysser, Kayser, Keizer or Käser, Lienhard and Lenhard are also recorded as first names (born around 1480 in Raab - August 16, 1527 in Schärding), was a Lutheran theologian and reformer who was burned as a heretic.
Biography[edit]
Kaiser came from a respected and wealthy family in the Bavarian Innviertel.[citation needed] He studied in Leipzig starting in 1500[1] and earned a baccalaureate degree.[citation needed] In 1517, he came to the village of Waizenkirchen as vicar.[1] When the Gospel was preached more and more intensively here in Upper Austria at the beginning of the 1520s, it was he who “showed the people the truth of the Gospel”. The quiet, no longer very young chaplain worked far beyond the boundaries of his village before he was reported as a Lutheran by the benefice holder because of his declining income and was forced to recant in 1524. But his conscience gave him no peace. He decided to leave his homeland and go to Wittenberg.
In the turbulent times after the Peasants' War he arrived there and enrolled at the University of Leucorea. Just as he was unable to escape Martin Luther's influence, it is said that Luther in turn became particularly fond of him. Kaiser sent letters and books home from Wittenberg, thereby further influencing his friends at home.
In order to see his terminally ill father again, he traveled home in 1527,[1] confident that no one in Bavaria had ever died because of “Lutheranism”. He influenced those around him and also came into personal contact with Michael Stifel. But the situation had changed. The administrator of Passau, Ernst von Bayern, was prepared to go to extremes. In response to a complaint from the pastor of Raab, the authorities arrested the emperor on March 10, 1527 for breach of oath and heresy.
Informed of the events by Stifel, Luther wrote a letter of consolation to him and urged him, whether he would be freed or not, to “recognize, bear, love and praise with a good heart the fatherly will of God in him.” Luther also asked his elector and Margrave Casimir to intercede on his behalf. The local nobility also insisted on standing up for the popular preacher.
However, the episcopal administrator could not be persuaded to release him by these advocates and their requests. He was interrogated by a commission that also included the well-known Ingolstadt professor and Luther opponent Johannes Eck. He himself reported on this process to his relatives, who later passed the report on to Luther. This is how the course of this heresy court became known. His “relapse” and his relationships with Luther were stressful enough. His views turned out to be entirely Lutheran. He always referred only to the Scriptures. He was unable to obtain a revocation. So he was convicted according to existing law and handed over to the secular arm for execution. On August 16, 1527 he was burned as a heretic in Schärding.
Afterlife[edit]
The population was not a little agitated by these events. The beginnings of legends and, above all, an anonymously published pamphlet glorifying Kaiser caused problems for those in power, so that Eck wrote a response to it, which was admittedly very weak.
In December 1527 (with the year 1528) Martin Luther published Von Er Lenhard Keiser ynn Beyern umb des Evangelii willen verbrandt, the nine editions of which show that it was widely distributed. In it Luther based himself on Kaiser's reports and his will on the one hand, and on a written eyewitness account of the trial in Passau and the execution in Schärding on the other. The fiery death of his student had moved Luther greatly.
In Catholic historiography, the opinion was long held that Kaiser should be counted among the Anabaptists, although there is no evidence for this.
On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of his death, a memorial stone was unveiled on the banks of the Inn outside the gates of Schärding. Its inscription reads: Leonhard Kaiser, preacher and martyr of the Gospel of Christ; burned at the "Gries" near Schärding on August 16, 1527. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, Matthew 5, verse 10.
On August 16, 1977, a memorial service for the 450th anniversary of Kaiser's death was held in Schärding with a large number of Protestant Christians from Austria and Germany in attendance.
Leonhard Kaiser's memorial day in the Protestant name calendar of the Evangelical Church in Germany is August 16.[2]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c Biographie, Deutsche. "Käser, Leonhard - Deutsche Biographie". www.deutsche-biographie.de.
- ^ "Leonhard Kaiser - Ökumenisches Heiligenlexikon". www.heiligenlexikon.de.