Jens Riber

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Jens Gregersen Riber or Jens Gregoriussen Riber or Jens Gregerssøn Riber (* 1480 (?) In Ribe , Denmark ; † August 9, 1571 in Stavanger , Norway ) was the first Lutheran bishop in the Faroe Islands and later in Stavanger.

Life

Riber was Kapellan at the cathedral church in Bergen when he was in 1540 from King Christian III. was appointed superintendent of the Faroe Islands to introduce the Reformation in the Faroe Islands . He replaced the last Catholic bishop Ámundur Ólavsson and took his seat in Kirkjubøur .

In 1556 or 1557 he left the Faroe Islands again. The later chronicler Lucas Debes writes that Riber fled for fear of pirates after they attacked the bishopric in Kirkjubøur. Absalon Pederssøn Beyer , who himself worked on the cathedral in Bergen, does not mention anything of the kind, but reports that Riber went to Copenhagen and asked for a dismissal from office in the Faroe Islands because he had too many opponents and no great authority there would have.

The Faroese historian Hans Jacob Debes believes it is likely that the Faroese found it difficult to accept the new denomination. A Reformation dispute that must have taken place everywhere in the Danish-Norwegian Empire, because Christian III. demanded in a circular to all superintendents the implementation of special days of prayer, since "sin and evil multiply and ceremonies are not observed". In fact, many Faroese are said to have been reluctant to pay their tithes to the new church and to adhere to the Catholic faith, especially since the Reformation was imposed on the Faroe Islands from outside.

When Jens Riber left office, which was Diocese Faroe resigned, and the Faroe Islands have been a provost of the diocese Bjørgvin (Bergen) .

Riber became Bishop of Stavanger in 1557 , although he was considered weak and uninterested in character. The Dansk biografisk leksikon even speaks of the “greatest mistake in Norwegian church history”. No outstanding things have survived from this period, except that in 1564 he contributed to the renovation of Stavanger Cathedral by , among other things, enforcing a special tax to preserve the dilapidated structure.

In 1565 he was put at his side by the ambitious parish priest and teacher Jakob Matsson, but when he died in 1569, the condition in the diocese deteriorated again. In 1571, the lord of Bergenhus , Mads Skeel, intervened and appointed Jørgen Erikson (Erikssøn) as assistant to the now 90-year-old Riber, who refused to cede any of his income to Erikson. Eriksen returned to Bergen without having achieved anything and went to Copenhagen, where King Frederick II finally deposed Bishop Riber and appointed Erikson as the new superintendent of Stavanger.

Jens Riber did not find out about his dismissal because he had died earlier.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Føroya søga 2 , p. 139.
  2. ↑ Dansk Biografisk Leksikon XIV, p. 82 f
personal data
SURNAME Riber, Jens
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Riber, Jens Gregersen; Riber, Jens Gregoriussen; Riber, Jens Gregerssøn
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish bishop
DATE OF BIRTH uncertain: 1480
PLACE OF BIRTH Ribe , Denmark
DATE OF DEATH August 9, 1571
Place of death Stavanger , Norway