Andreas Fischer (Baptist)

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Andreas Fischer (* around 1480; † around 1540) was a German Sabbatarian Anabaptist , at times preacher of the Nikolsburg Anabaptist community and a martyr of the Anabaptist movement .

Life

Krásna Hôrka Castle (Place of execution of Fischer)

So far, there is no reliable knowledge about the place of birth and the first years of life. It is believed that Andreas Fischer was born around 1480 as the son of the car maker Andreas Rybár. The city of Kremnitz (Slovak: Kremnica ) in Upper Hungary or in today's Slovakia or the Moravian Littau (Czech: Litovel ) are assumed as possible birthplaces . An origin from the southern German-Austrian region would also be possible. In 1498 Fischer was probably enrolled at the University of Vienna , where he received his master's degree in 1505 and in 1511 received a canonical at the cathedral chapter in Olomouc in Moravia (Czech: Olomouc ). Fischer had a good knowledge of Greek and Hebrew.

In the years 1519-23 he was Vicar General of the Diocese of Olomouc. In Olomouc he joined the humanistic circle of friends of the auxiliary bishop Martin Göschl, who a few years later would appear as a supporter of Balthasar Hubmaier in Nikolsburg. In 1523 Fischer became assistant to the Lutheran clergyman in Eperies (Slovak: Prešov ). Two years later he joined the radical Reformation Anabaptist movement in Linz .

Fischer carried out baptisms himself in South Moravia as early as 1528 . A year later, an Anabaptist missionary trip took him through the then German-speaking cities of the Spiš in north-eastern Slovakia . In the town of Schwedler (Slovak: Švedlár ) he was able to preach in the town church. As a radical Reformation preacher, however, he quickly came into conflict with the Hungarian heretic laws and was accordingly sentenced to death as a Lutheran on May 13, 1529 . While his wife, who had been captured with him, was drowned, Fischer escaped. Already in July 1529 Fischer was back in Leutschau ( Levoča active) and Schwedler. In Schwedler, where he was supported by the city council, he publicly baptized more than 70 to 80 people. On November 10, 1529, Fischer married a Leutschau bourgeois daughter. In order to avoid being arrested again, Fischer decided to leave Slovakia in mid-November 1529, despite the backing of craftsmen and council members in Schwedler and Leutschau ( Levoča ).

He returned to Moravia via Cracow with his second wife . Here he joined the inner Anabaptist movement of the Sabbaths founded by Oswald Glait . Together with Glait, with whom he also preached in the villages of the Duchy of Liegnitz , he spoke out in favor of keeping the Sabbath and published the now lost Scepastes Decalogi ( Defender of the Decalogue ). This made it clear that Fischer had a profound knowledge of the Church Fathers as well as Latin, Greek and Hebrew.

In June 1535 Fischer signed the creed of the five preachers of the Nikolsburg Anabaptists as preacher of the Anabaptist community in Pavlov ( Pollau ) . The confession is close to the theology of Balthasar Hubmaier . The Sabbath question is not mentioned. After the Anabaptist preachers of the city of Nikolsburg were deposed in the summer of 1535 at the instigation of Ferdinand I , Fischer first moved to Jamnitz in Moravia (Czech: Jemnice ) and later to Slovakia, where he was arrested at the beginning of 1542 and executed as a heretic . Andreas Fischer died after he fell from a wall of the Krásna Hôrka castle on a hill .

literature

  • Martin Rothkegel: Andreas Fischer. New research on the biography of a known stranger , in: Yearbook for the history of Protestantism in Austria 121 (2005), pages 325–351.
  • Daniel Liechty: Andreas Fischer and the Sabbatarian Anabaptists, an Early Reformation Episode in East Central Europe. Herald Press, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, 1988.
  • Siegfried Wollgast: Morphology of Silesian Religiosity in the Early Modern Era: Socinianism and Anabaptism. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 22, 2003, pp. 419-448, here: pp. 429 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mennonite Encyclopedia
personal data
SURNAME Fischer, Andreas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Anabaptists and Sabbatians
DATE OF BIRTH around 1480
DATE OF DEATH around 1540