Anarg to Wildenfels

Anarg Heinrich zu Wildenfels (* around 1490 in Wildenfels , Erzgebirge, † 1539 in Altenburg ), also Anarg von Wildenfels zu Schönkirchen and Ronneburg, was an electoral councilor, reformer and evangelical hymn poet.

Life

It is known from his life that he was significantly involved in the introduction of the Reformation in Saxony and that he steadfastly defended Luther's teachings in the spirit of Martin Luther .

Among his hymns, for example, the Evangelical Church Hymns, edition for the Evangelical Church in Württemberg from 1953, as well as the Evangelical Church Hymns - editions for the Evangelical Luth. Regional churches Mecklenburg, Saxony and Thuringia 1985, still the Reformation song from ( O Herre Gott, your divine word ), from which a firmness of faith and unbreakable loyalty to the evangelical teaching emerges. The father Anarg von Wildenfels was Friedrich the Wise's companion in 1493 on his pilgrimage as an Electoral Saxon bailiff to the Holy Land; Elector Friedrich is said to have been the godfather of Anarg Heinrich zu Wildenfels and to have included the area of ​​Ronneburg (today Thuringia) "as a godparent gift". Presumably this opened up the entitlement to the rule of Ronneburg, because in 1517 Elector Friedrich and Duke Johann gave him "Castle and city of Ronneburg including all affiliations, villages and courts". In 1527 after Frederick's death, Johann placed the nobles in the area under him as vassals and thus raised Ronneburg to rule. Schönkirchen in the Bavarian Upper Palatinate had belonged to the Lords of Wildenfels since 1490.

On January 8, 1516, Anarg Heinrich von Wildenfels met Georg Spalatin at the castle in Torgau , Anarg Heinrich served as court master of the brothers Otto and Ernst, dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, nephews of Frederick the Wise. Mardi Gras 1521 he took part in the tournament at the Diet in Worms and was an opponent of Prince Elector Johann Friedrich. In 1521 or 1522 he married a Countess Elisabeth von Gleichen. Heinrich von Wildenfels was born in 1525 († 1558 buried in Drei Marien *** Härtensdorf, the former court church of the Wildenfels rule). As early as 1522, Anarg Heinrich v. Wildenfels worked intensively on Luther's sermons, because he had "carefully prepared copies" of various Luther's sermons. In 1523 he brought a monk who had converted to the Protestant faith from the Weimar Franciscan monastery in Ronneburg to safety. In 1525/1526 he took care of the "Evangelical Party" in the Dominican monastery of Cronschwitz near Weida and their care.

Ev. Church of the Three Marys in Härtensdorf

On February 19, 1527, he moderated a disputation in Düsseldorf between the Franciscan observant Johann Heller from Korbach and the Lutheran theologian Friedrich Myconius , the so-called " Düsseldorf Religious Discussion ".

From the end of 1528 he took part in church and school visits in Meissen and the Vogtland, including in Härtensdorf in 1529. It was found, among other things, that the Wildenfels castle chaplain administered the Härtensdorf pastoral office, but that a properly appointed pastor had to take over the office to which the castle chaplain was supposed to be subordinate, and that the parish seat was in Härtensdorf. During the church and school visitation in 1531, the orderly execution in Härtensdorf could be determined. Anarg was at the Reichstag in Augsburg in 1530 and appeared as a witness at the protestation of the electors against the coronation of Emperor Charles V in Bologna without their prior knowledge . In 1536 Anarg Heinrich von Wildenfels took full possession of the rulership of Wildenfels again and died on June 1, 1539 during a visitation in Altenburg. In Altenburg as well as in the Drei Marien church in Härtensdorf , grave tablets remind of Anarg Heinrich von Wildenfels. When the crypt was opened in 1936, the remains of a coffin were found in the Drei Marien church in Härtensdorf, which could possibly be the final resting place of Anarg Heinrich zu Wildenfels. His son Heinrich († 1558) and grandson Anarg Friedrich († 1602 in Prague), with whom the male line of succession expired in 1602, also rest there. The Church of the Three Marys in Härtensdorf was for a long time the court church of the small, formerly imperial dominion Wildenfels; an old coat of arms - an angel bearing a coat of arms - shows the oldest known representation of the old coat of arms and indicates the importance of this venerable church.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. Otto R. Redlich (Ed.): The Düsseldorf Religious Discussion of 1527 . In: Zeitschrift des Bergisches Geschichtesverein 29 (1893), pp. 193-213 ( Google Books ; limited preview).
2. ↑ LHA Order 1A No. 9384
3. ^ New Sächsische Kirchengalerie, Ephorie Zwickau, Parochie Härtensdorf, Leipzig 1902