Heinrich Winkel

Heinrich Winkel, also Heinrich Winckel (* around 1493 in Wernigerode , † around 1551 in Braunschweig ) was a Lutheran theologian and reformer .

Life

His family was petty-bourgeois and lived in the pious spirit of the late Middle Ages . When he was only 14 years old, his father bought him for 130 guilders in the St. Johannes monastery in Halberstadt . The boy easily fitted into monastery life and showed an inclination to study early on, so that in 1511 he was sent to Leipzig by the order. After his return the young Augustinian monk had to teach in the monastery school.

In the meantime, Reformation influences had also penetrated the Halberstadt monastery. During the decisive years of the Reformation, a number of friars stood up for the gospel. But they were unable to assert themselves and had to leave the monastery. Now Winkel was elected prior in 1523. A short time later, the Reformation-inclined council asked him as pastor to the Martinikirche , where he worked as a blessing through his popular sermon, especially at the time of the peasant uprising .

Cardinal Albrecht would have liked to hold him as bishop in Halberstadt and even made him the admission that he only had to read mass once a year. But Winkel had meanwhile been taken by the Lutheran view, so that he not only lost the pastorate, but was also denied his return to the monastery.

Via Wittenberg to Braunschweig

Now Winkel went to Wittenberg to study thoroughly. He wrote two letters to his friars in Halberstadt in which he spoke of his inner liberation. Later, the people of Halberstadt tried in vain to pull him back to the Martinikirche. Instead, however, he turned to Braunschweig , where the Reformation had achieved full victory in 1528. Johannes Bugenhagen was called to write the church ordinance for Braunschweig and he supported him as much as possible. When Bugenhagen left the city after a short time, Luther recommended Magister Görlitz as superintendent, with whom Winkel worked again as coadjutor . Both published a confession together in 1531, when differences of opinion arose among the town pastors about the Lord's Supper.

Effects on the surrounding area

In addition to Braunschweig, Winkel also gained importance for the Reformation in other cities in Lower Saxony. Göttingen , Hanover and Hildesheim owe it to him that the Reformation forces were steered on healthy paths. First the people of Göttingen turned their gaze to him when the task was to win a talented and calm leader for the new church system. Within a short time he succeeded in overcoming the iconoclastic tendencies there and also in drawing the conservative part of the citizenry to the side of the Reformation. The church order that he issued in Göttingen was based on the Braunschweigschen. Göttingen would have gladly kept him with him forever. But he refused the honorable call.

After his return to Braunschweig, however, he soon had the opportunity again to take on a foreign service. His influence was felt not only in Halberstadt and Lemgo , but above all in Hanover. He worked here for almost a year to consolidate the Reformation. Because he was able to speak Low German, he was valued by all strata of the population. On the basis that he had laid, the church system in Hanover was able to develop calmly.

Work in Hildesheim

Even in the episcopal city of Hildesheim, which had closed itself off to Reformation sermons for so long, the new spirit had to come into its own. The political events of 1542 opened the city gates to him. At the request of the citizens, three evangelical preachers, Winkel, Bugenhagen and Anton Corvinus , could begin the reorganization of the church and school system in Hildesheim. The new church order was drawn up and printed straight away. Longer than the other two seemed angle in Hildesheim, was recalled to also coming to Brunswick, where through his new country Visitation zuwuchsen larger tasks.

In his sermon he did not express his own thoughts, but passed them on in all faithfulness. what he had learned from Martin Luther . Contemporaries praise him as a learned and eloquent man who had put his unusual gifts entirely at the service of the Reformation. Humble and humble in his nature, he was an impressive preacher who, through his diligent and loyal service to the Reformation in Lower Saxony, created something lasting.

literature

• Eduard Jacobs :  Winckel, Heinrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 43, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898, pp. 337-341.
• Eduard Jacobs: Heinrich Winkel and the Reformation in southern Lower Saxony. Niemeyer, Halle 1896 ( publications of the Association for Reformation History. Volume 53).
• Eduard Jacobs: Heinrich Winkel and the introduction of the Reformation in the cities of Lower Saxony. In: Journal of the Society for Church History in Lower Saxony. 19, 1896, pp. 133-314.
• Paul Tschackert : An unprinted letter from the city of Braunschweig to the city of Göttingen about Heinrich Winkel. In: Journal of the Society for Church History in Lower Saxony. 2, 1879, p. 307 f.
• The Reformation in the city of Braunschweig. Festschrift 1528–1978. Braunschweig 1978.

Web links

• Entries on Heinrich Winkel in: Diane Deufert: Matthias Bergius (1536–1592): Ancient poetry tradition in the denominational age. on books.google.de, p. 129.