Christian Groß (theologian)

Christian Groß (born September 30, 1601 in Wittenberg ; † July 17, 1673 in Stettin ) was a Lutheran theologian and from 1653 to 1673 the first electoral Brandenburg general superintendent in Western Pomerania and the diocese of Cammin .

Live and act

Christian Groß was the son of the lawyer Matthias Groß and his wife Marie Nikolai. He received lessons in his hometown, at whose university he also began studying. In 1620 he received his master's degree, but initially continued his studies in Wittenberg until he went to the University of Leipzig in 1625 . From 1628 he held his own lectures in philosophy and theology here.

In 1629 he traveled through several university cities to Strasbourg for a disputation with Johann Schmidius on the question of the Trinity . Back in Leipzig he became a collegiator in the Collegio illustri . In addition, in 1631 he became tutor to the sons of Watzdorff and then to the young Count of Lynar in Torgau . He stayed in Leipzig until 1632.

In 1633 he received the appointment in Lübeck by the Pomeranian Duke Bogislaw XIV as a preacher at the Castle and St. Mary's Church in Stettin . He did not take up this office until 1634 in Leipzig where he received a licentiate in theology. In Stettin he was also appointed a member of the consistory .

In 1640 Christian Groß was awarded the title of Doctor of Theology in Leipzig in his absence. Five years later he became pastor at the Stettin Nikolaikirche .

His theological as well as his diligence in the pastoral practice allowed him to mature into a new task: On June 15, 1650 he received the appointment of the Brandenburg Elector Friedrich Wilhelm as the new General Superintendent of Eastern Pomerania in the succession of Jakob Fabricius (Upper Pomerania-Stettin) and the Immanuel König (Kolberg-Cammin), whose superintendent's offices have now been merged. However, it was not until 1653 that Christian Groß was introduced to his office in the Kolberg Cathedral , which he then held for twenty years until his death.

After the death of Christian Groß, Sylvester Grabe was appointed general superintendent. Due to the war riots, however, his inauguration was delayed by six years.

Christian Groß married Barbara Prätorius († 1668) for the first time in 1634, and Cäcilie von Braunschweig, who was a daughter of the mayor of Szczecin, in 1672.

literature

• Ernst Müller: The Protestant clergy of Pomerania from the Reformation to the present. Part 2: The administrative district of Köslin. Szczecin 1912.

See also

• Pomeranian Evangelical Church

Web links

• Publications by and about Christian Groß in VD 17 .

predecessor	Office	successor
Jacob Fabricius	General superintendent of Pomerania-Stettin 1653–1673	Sylvester grave
Mövius Völschow	General superintendent of Pommern-Wolgast 1653–1673	Abraham Battus