Julius von Pflug

Julius von Pflug , also Julius von Pflugk , (* 1499 in Eythra ; † September 3, 1564 in Zeitz ) was the last Catholic bishop of the diocese of Naumburg from 1542 until his death .

Julius von Pflug

Life

Origin and years of study

Julius came from the von Pflugk family and was the son of Caesar von Pflugk , an adviser to Duke George the Bearded . In 1510, at the age of eleven, Pflug was enrolled at the University of Leipzig . For the most part he was the student of Petrus Mosellanus there . In 1517 Pflug went to Lazaro Buonamico at the University of Padua on the recommendation of his teacher . He successfully completed his studies at the University of Bologna .

Career as a clergyman

When he returned home, he became a canon of the cathedral chapter of Meissen . Under Bishop Johann VIII von Maltitz he resisted the elector's attacks on the diocese. In 1521 Duke George of Saxony appointed him as a councilor. The following year he was appointed provost of the cathedral in Zeitz . In the years 1528/29 Pflug went on a study trip through Italy ; he probably also visited Rome and the Vatican . In 1530 he accompanied his employer, Duke Georg, to the Reichstag in Augsburg . In 1531 he received a position in the Mainz cathedral chapter . In 1532 Pflug returned to Zeitz . In those years there was probably no important church conference or negotiation in which Pflug did not take part. In Leipzig , Pflug disputed alongside Christoph von Carlowitz and others with the Protestants Philipp Melanchthon and Gregor Brück . In 1537 Pflug was appointed cathedral dean of Meißen, and in 1539 Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg appointed him as a councilor. When Duke Heinrich von Sachsen wanted to reform the Diocese of Meissen that same year , the Bishop of Meissen commissioned Pflug, probably together with Georg Witzel , with the protest note A common doctrine of four articles that every Christian needs to know . In April 1541, Pflug represented the Catholic party at the Regensburg Religious Discussion . Here he disputed with the theologians Johannes Eck and Johann Gropper .

Bishop of Naumburg

In 1540 Pflug was appointed cathedral chapter of Naumburg and in 1541 the cathedral chapter elected him the new bishop of Naumburg . Elector Johann Friedrich von Sachsen saw this not only as a political but also a personal affront and in turn appointed the evangelical preacher Nikolaus von Amsdorf as bishop in Naumburg. In the years 1542 to 1547, Pflug was mostly in exile in Mainz and was particularly interested in Martin Luther's theses . Influenced by Georg Witzel and above all by Erasmus von Rotterdam , Pflug was always concerned about balance and saw himself as a mediator between the denominations. Regarding the double appointment of bishops in Naumburg, no solution was found at the Reichstag in Speyer in 1542. In light of the split in the church , it is difficult to call Nikolaus von Amsdorf the opposing bishop , in any case he was the de facto ruler of the bishopric until 1546, albeit heavily dependent on Electoral Saxony.

A decision was not made until 1546 in the Schmalkaldic War . Duke Moritz von Sachsen and his troops made it possible for Pflug to move into Naumburg. But in January 1547, Elector Johann Friedrich von Sachsen drove out Pflug again. The victory of Emperor Charles V in the battle of Mühlberg on April 24, 1547 brought Pflug back the bishopric. But he took on a difficult position, since most of his diocese had become Lutheran.

Even though he did not take drastic measures as a secular ruler, he managed to calm the situation within the monastery. He tried to restore the authority of the Catholic Church. In matters of faith he faced a largely Protestant diocese in which, for example, only one pastor had remained unmarried. So he turned to the Pope with the request to allow the marriages of the pastors in his diocese and to allow the Lord's Supper in both forms , which was refused. A training center for theologians in Zeitz, necessary for re-Catholicization, was not installed. Julius was often concerned about balance and rapprochement. He acted so cautiously that the theologian Josef Hergenröther and the historian Ludwig Pastor even accused him of cryptocalvinism .

In June 1546, Pflug took part in the religious discussion in Regensburg . Here he discussed u. a. with Michael Helding and Johannes Agricola . Since Pflug was successful there, the emperor asked him in 1548 for help in formulating the Augsburg interim . In poor health, Julius took part in the Council of Trent in 1551 and 1552 , but hardly appeared. At the Worms Religious Discussion in 1557, Pflug was appointed chairman.

At the age of 65, Bishop Julius von Pflug died on September 3, 1564 in Zeitz and was buried in the cathedral of Moritzburg in Zeitz . There is also a grave slab indicating this. He was the last bishop of the diocese, which was then administered only by administrators and later became part of the Electorate of Saxony.

Library and estate

In 50 years of collecting activity, Pflug amassed an important library. It originally comprised almost 2,000 prints in around 1,000 volumes, which Pflug bequeathed to the Zeitz Abbey Library . Almost 900 volumes with around 1,700 prints have been preserved in Zeitz to date. “The inventory is a humanistic scholarly library with editions by Aristotle , Cicero , Horace and Homer , as well as numerous legal works, but also titles from the fields of theology, mathematics, medicine and natural history. With a total of 157 titles by Martin Luther , it is also one of the most important contemporary collections of Reformation documents. ”Most of his written legacy has also been preserved in Zeitz. The library and estate are to be digitized by 2021.

Aftermath

In 2017, an exhibition about Julius Pflug took place at Moritzburg Castle in Zeitz under the title Dialog of Denominations. Bishop Julius Pflug and the Reformation took place.

literature

• Adolf Brecher:  Pflugk, Julius . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 25, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, pp. 688-691.
• Otfried Müller: Bishop Julius Pflug von Naumburg-Zeitz in his efforts for the unity of the church. (In: Contributions to the history of the Archdiocese of Magdeburg , edited by Franz Schrader [= Studies on the Catholic Diocesan and Monastery History , Vol. 11], Leipzig 1968, pp. 155–178)
• Jacques V. Pollet: Julius Pflug (1499-1564) et la crise religieuse dans l'Allemagne du XVIe siècle . Brill 1990, ISBN 90-04-09241-2 .
• Werner Raupp :  Julius von Pflug. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 15, Bautz, Herzberg 1999, ISBN 3-88309-077-8 , Sp. 1156-1161.
• Corinna Wandt: The writing language of Julius Pflug in the denominational dispute. Writing language analysis and an edited dialogue . Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-05-005704-0 .
• Heinz Wießner: The Diocese of Naumburg 1 - The Diocese 2 . In: Max Planck Institute for History (ed.): Germania Sacra , NF 35.2, The Dioceses of the Church Province of Magdeburg . Berlin / New York 1998, pp. 986–1005 ( digital edition )

Individual proof

1. ^ The Plow Library , accessed on July 17, 2020
2. ↑ Naumburg's last bishop is digitally resurrected , press release July 15, 2020, accessed on July 17, 2020
3. ^ Julius Pflug - exhibition. United Cathedral Donors of Merseburg and Naumburg and the Zeitz Collegiate Foundation, accessed on February 26, 2020 . 

Web links

• Works by and about Julius von Pflug  in the German Digital Library
• Edited letters from and to Julius von Pflug in the web service correspSearch of the BBAW
• Short biography and illustration of the epitaph at the Catholic parish of Zeitz
• Biography of the research project "Controversia et Confessio"
• The correspondence of Julius Pflug 1510 to 1564, evaluation, visualization, overview of the edition of letters by Jacques V. Pollet

predecessor	Office	successor
Philip of the Palatinate Lutheran " Counter Bishop " Nikolaus von Amsdorf (1542–1546)	Bishop of Naumburg 1541–1564	End of the line of bishops Verweser Alexander von Sachsen