Dionysius Melander

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Dionysius Melander , also Schwarzmann (* around 1486 in Ulm ; † July 10, 1561 in Kassel ) was a German theologian and reformer .

Live and act

Melander was initially Dominicans - Monk in Ulm . In 1525 he was called to Frankfurt am Main as a preacher at the invitation of the council . Together with Johann Bernhard (called Johann Algesheimer) he was the first permanent Reformed preacher in the city.

He preached passionately against the spiritual authorities of the city, the canons of the imperial monastery of St. Bartholomew . Under his influence, popular uprisings against the Catholic clergy broke out in early 1533, during which altar panels and relics were destroyed. The council then banned Catholic worship in Frankfurt on April 23, 1533, but at the same time distanced itself from the uprisings and removed Melander from his office in 1535. It may have contributed to the fact that Martin Luther intervened against the iconoclasts immediately after the unrest in 1533 in a letter to Franckfort am Meyn .

Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous of Hesse accepted him as court preacher. Melander performed the morganatic marriage of the Landgrave to the Saxon court maid Margarete von der Saale (1522–1566) on March 4, 1540 . In an expert opinion, he had declared the double marriage to be theologically harmless against any criticism. However, it brought the landgrave the charge of bigamy and years of political difficulties.

After the Schmalkaldic War , Philip was taken prisoner by Emperor Charles V. After the Augsburg interim in 1548 , he forced Melander to be released as court preacher. The Landgrave did not let him down, however, but assigned him a pastor's position in Kassel, which he administered until his death in 1561.

Melander was one of the 43 signatories of the Schmalkaldic Article in 1537 .

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