Heinrich Barenbroch

Heinrich Barenbroch (also Heinrich von Kempen ; * around 1525 in Kempen , † May 25, 1587 in Essen ) was a Protestant pastor and reformer of the city of Essen.

education

Heinrich Barenbroch was born around 1525 in Kempen on the Lower Rhine. He came from an educated, middle-class, non-peasant family. In the summer of 1542 he enrolled as a student of Catholic theology at the University of Cologne . After graduating from the artist faculty , he received the Baccalauréat the following year and two years later the rights of licensed and lecturer . 1551 he became rain a Universitätsburse .

Act

In 1555 he took up his first pastorate in the parish of St. Lorenz in Cologne . There he criticized the church grievances of his time in sharp tones. The Archbishop of Cologne Adolf III. von Schaumburg (1547–1556) heard about his sermons against the neglect of the church and the ever-growing audience. So he called Barenbroch and reprimanded him. Barenbroch lost his pastor and had to follow the archbishop to his residence in Brühl . From there he fled in March 1555. The escape was only the external fulfillment of the inner turn to Lutheranism that had already taken place during his activity in St. Lorenz .

As early as 1555, Barenbroch found a new pastorate in the Electoral Palatinate city ​​of Bacharach . After the church visitation carried out in 1556 under Elector Ottheinrich (1556–1559) , the evangelical confession in the Electoral Palatinate was secured. When his successor, Elector Friedrich III. (1559–1576), who turned to reformed teaching from 1560 onwards , the Lutheran Barenbroch could no longer stay in the Electoral Palatinate. The first contact with the city of Essen took place during the Bacharach period: As usual, the mayor Heinrich von Aken bought the council wine in the Bacharach area and became aware of the capable preacher from the Lower Rhine region. Since Christmas Eve 1560, the Essen congregation asked for a preacher to sing German songs and to distribute the Lord's Supper in both forms . When the Catholic pastor Saldenberg applied to the Essen magistrate for an assistant on December 8, 1561, a messenger was sent to Bacharach on the same day to ask Barenbroch to come to Essen. But by this time he had already had to leave Bacharach on the orders of the elector.

Barenbroch looked at Duke Wolfgang von Pfalz-Zweibrücken (1543–1569) for a new position. The duke had given his house a Lutheran church ordinance in 1557 and rejected the reformed doctrine. However, when applying, Barenbroch asked not to be transferred to a country parish, as he could not continue his studies there and had to live from cattle breeding and other work, which he did not understand anything about. Barenbroch received a pastor's position in the Hinteren Grafschaft Sponheim , in Kastellaun , which he took up in early 1562. Here he carried out his office with all seriousness and to the full satisfaction of his sovereign. In the same year, Duke Wolfgang commissioned Barenbroch, as one of the particularly learned and upright church servants, to participate in a church visit. In 1568 Barenbroch began to write the oldest church book in Kastellaun. He remained pastor of Kastellaun until 1573.

During the entire decade that Barenbroch spent on the Hunsrück , attempts were made to win the tried and tested Barenbroch to Essen. A first attempt, around New Year 1562, did not lead to the goal. It was only when his sovereign returned from a trip and gave his permission at the end of March 1563 that the Kastellauner was able to undertake the arduous journey to the Ruhr . On April 28, 1563 he gave his first sermon in the Essen Holy Spirit Chapel, on May 2 he was able to distribute the Lord's Supper in both forms for the first time in the Gertrudiskirche . April 28 is still celebrated in Essen today as the birthday of the local community and Barenbroch as its founder. However, he had to leave the city again on May 17th because the abbess had appealed to the Duke of Kleve to protect him against church innovators. In the following period the reformer stayed in Essen several times, but only for a few weeks or months (1563/64, 1565, 1567, 1571/72). The cause was the resistance of the abbess, duke and emperor against Barenbroich and the weak position of the magistrate. In view of the uncertain situation, Barenbroch was unable to decide for a long time to move to Essen. In addition, he felt obliged to Kastellaun and his sovereign.

At the end of 1572 the efforts of the council and the community to finally bring Barenbroch to Essen were fulfilled. Although he had quit his position in Kastellaun on his own initiative, Johann I von Pfalz-Zweibrücken (1569–1604) was ready to resume the proven preacher who had introduced his father's church rules in Essen if he wanted to leave Essen. That was a sign of how much his work was valued in Kastellaun and beyond. On December 2, 1572, Barenbroch arrived in his Essen parish, which he did not leave until his death in 1587. Barenbroch found his final resting place in the choir of the Gertrudiskirche, today's market church , at the entrance to the sacristy.

family

Barenbroch got married in Bacharach for the first time. His wife, whose name has not been passed down, died at the end of 1561. The marriage had two children. His second wife, Margareta, was a daughter of the Bacharach mayor Jakob Schmidt. Possibly she was a sister of the first woman. Two daughters are known from the second marriage who were born in Kastellaun: Auelbeth (* 1569) and Brigitte (* 1571).

literature

• Peter Bockmühl: On the prehistory of the Essen reformer Heinrich Barenbroch von Kempen. In: Monthly Issues for Rhenish Church History 3 (1909), pp. 301–307.
• Friedrich Back : The pastor Heinrich von Kempen in Kastellaun. In: Monthly Issues for Rhenish Church History 5 (1911), pp. 322–337.
• Albert Rosenkranz : Heinrich Barenbroch. In: Contributions to the history of the city and monastery Essen 78 (1962), pp. 18–69.
• Albert Rosenkranz: Heinrich Barenbroch. In: Monthly Issues for Evangelical Church History of the Rhineland 16 (1967), pp. 213–219.
• Helmut Müller: The Reformation in Essen. In: Contributions to the history of the city and monastery of Essen 84 (1968), pp. 3–202.