Confessors

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Confessors (Latin: Confessores ) are called Christians by the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches , who professed their faith in times of Christian persecution and therefore had to accept persecution, expulsion , torture , mutilation and imprisonment , but not directly Have suffered martyrdom . Later, popes , bishops , abbots , kings and hermits were also counted among the confessors.

With the spread of Christianity and the decrease in the persecution of Christians in the 5th century, this designation was also given to those Christians who led a holy life, for example the English King Edward the Confessor .

Confessors

Definition in the Protestant churches

While the designation of a person as a confessor in the churches that are familiar with a beatification or canonization process allows an exact definition via entries in liturgical books, the Protestant churches use the term more openly with reference to ancient church demarcations. The Protestant theologian Oskar Schabert defines the term in contrast to the term martyr in his Baltic martyr book as follows: “If the right martyr mentality (mente jam martyres) is present and the witnesses stay alive despite the suffering according to God's wonderful advice, they are called confessors . ”As examples he lists some evangelical clergymen who, as exponents of the church, died in captivity of the Bolsheviks from the poor conditions of detention:

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Johann Baptist Lüft : Confessor . In: Wetzer and Welte's Church Lexicon . 2nd Edition. Herder'sche Verlagshandlung, Freiburg im Breisgau 1903 ( online version [accessed September 19, 2017]).
  2. ^ Oskar Schabert: Baltic Martyrs Book . Furche-Verlag, Berlin 1926, p. 172 ff. ( Digitized version )