Erhard von Queis

Erhard von Queis (* around 1490 in Storkow (Niederlausitz) ; † September 10, 1529 in Prussian Holland ) was Bishop of Pomesania . He is considered one of the pioneers of the Reformation in Prussia .

Life

There is no news of the youth of the first evangelical bishop of Pomesania. As stated in the university register of Frankfurt (Oder) , where he was registered in 1506, he came from Storkow. In 1515 he moved to Bologna to study law . However, it is not certain where and when he acquired the title of doctor of both rights. He met us as Chancellor of Liegnitz Duke Friedrich II as early as 1523. Grand Master Albrecht I of Brandenburg-Ansbach met him at the Liegnitz court and persuaded him to join the Teutonic Order and to take over the second Prussian diocese that had become vacant. On September 10, 1523 Erhard von Queis was elected bishop by the cathedral chapter of Marienwerder . He has never been confirmed by the papal side, since he professed to be a Protestant bishop. He took up his residence in Riesenburg.

The Grand Master Albrecht had great confidence in the bishop, who was experienced in legal and administrative matters. He sent him as a representative of the order to negotiations in Pressburg and Cracow , where the secularization of the order was discussed and he paid homage to the King of Poland as patron instead of the Teutonic Order for Albrecht. He also had such assignments to fulfill later on. When he accompanied the Duke to Danzig in 1526, he was already wearing secular costume.

Queis also signed the marriage contract in Kiel when Duke Albrecht wooed the Danish king's daughter Dorothea. Political services for the young duchy prevented him from fulfilling his church duties for a long time. Queis, like Bishop Georg von Polentz, was entirely on the side of the Reformation . At the end of 1524 Queis published his Reformation program "Themata episcopi Riesenburgensis". Here he states that there are only two sacraments instituted by Christ and that human statutes must be abolished in the church.

The bishop demanded the German language for the service and forbade the worship of the host and the Corpus Christi procession. His 19th thesis reads: “The daily mass is an abomination to God; therefore it should not be kept in any church or anywhere. ”The bishop allowed priests and religious free to enter into marriage. The church ordinance issued for the Duchy of Prussia in 1525 bears at its head the names of their two evangelical bishops, Polentz and Queis.

Queis, like Polentz, had ceded his secular rule to the Duke and only kept the offices of Marienwerder and Schönberg. He himself entered into a marriage, namely with the Duchess Apolonia, a daughter of the Münsterberg Duke Viktorin . Apolonia was before marriage nun in Klarissenkloster Strehlen been, she died in March 1529 in childbirth. Erhard von Queis died in 1529 on the return trip from the state parliament in Königsberg of " English sweat ".

literature

• Paul Tschackert : Document book on the Reformation history of the Duchy of Prussia . Volume 1, Leipzig 1890, p. 39.
• Robert Stupperich : The Reformation in the Order of Prussia. Ulm 1966.
• Walther Hubatsch : History of the Protestant Church in East Prussia . Vol. 1, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1968.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Paul Tschackert: Document book on the Reformation history of the Duchy of Prussia , Vol. I Introduction . S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1890, p. 160f ( digitized at OpenLibrary).

predecessor	Office	successor
Georg von Polenz	Bishop of Pomesania 1523–1525	Paul Speratus