Leonhard Kaiser

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Leonhard Kaiser, also Kaysser , Kayser , Keizer or Käser , Lienhard and Lenhard are also recorded as first names (* around 1480 in Raab ; † August 16, 1527 in Schärding ), was a Lutheran theologian and reformer who was burned as a heretic .

Life

The execution of Leonhard Kaiser according to the Martyrs Mirror from 1660
Monument to Emperor near the site of his execution

Kaiser came from a respected and wealthy family in the Bavarian Innviertel . He studied in Leipzig from 1502 and earned the Baccalaureat . In 1517 he came to the village of Waizenkirchen as vicar . When the gospel was preached more intensely here in Upper Austria at the beginning of the 1920s , it was he who "showed the people the truth of the gospel". The quiet, no longer very young chaplain worked far beyond the boundaries of his village before he was reported by the beneficiary as a Lutheran because of the decreasing income and forced to withdraw in 1524. But his conscience gave him no peace. He decided to leave home and go to Wittenberg .

In the excited times after the Peasants' War he arrived there and enrolled at the University of Leucorea . Just as he could not escape the influence of Martin Luther , so it is said that Luther, for his part, won him particularly dear. Kaiser sent letters and books home from Wittenberg and thereby continued to influence his friends back home.

To see his terminally ill father again, he traveled home in 1527, trusting that nobody in Bavaria had died because of the "Lutherei". He influenced his surroundings and also came into personal contact with Michael Stifel . But the situation had changed. The administrator of Passau , Ernst von Bayern , was ready to go to extremes. On March 10, 1527, following a report from the pastor of Raab, the authorities arranged for the emperor to be arrested for breach of oath and heresy.

Having been informed of the events by Stifel, Luther wrote him a letter of consolation and warned him whether he would be freed or not to “ recognize, bear, love and praise with a good heart the fatherly will of God in him”. Luther also asked his elector and the margrave Casimir to intercede for him. The local aristocracy also insisted on standing up for the popular preacher .

However, these advocates and their requests could not move the episcopal administrator to release him. He was interrogated by a commission to which the well-known Ingolstadt professor and Luther opponent Johannes Eck belonged. He himself reported on this process to his relatives, who later sent the report to Luther. This is how the course of this heretic judgment became known. His "recidivism" and his relationships with Luther were stressful enough. His views turned out to be entirely Lutheran. For he always only referred to the Scriptures . He was unable to obtain a revocation. So he was sentenced on the basis of the applicable law and handed over to the secular arm for execution . On August 16, 1527 he was burned as a heretic in Schärding.

Afterlife

Luther's Burned by Er Lenhard keiser ynn Beyern for the sake of the Evangelij (1528; title page)

The population was seized by a great deal of excitement in view of these events. The beginning of the formation of legends and, above all, an anonymously published pamphlet that glorified the emperor, bothered the rulers, so that Eck wrote an answer that was admittedly very weak.

Martin Luther published in December 1527 (with the year 1528) the work Von Er Lenhard Keizer ynn Beyern burned for the sake of the Gospel , the nine editions of which testify that it was widespread. In it Luther relied on the one hand on Kaiser's reports and his will , and on the other hand on a written eyewitness report from the trial in Passau and the execution in Schärding. Luther was very moved by the fire death of his pupil.

In historiography, which was influenced by Catholicism, the opinion was long held that emperors should be counted among the Anabaptists , for which there is no evidence whatsoever.

On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of death, a memorial stone was unveiled on the banks of the Inn in front of the gates of Schärding . Its inscription reads: Leonhard Kaiser, preacher and martyr of the Gospel of Christ; burned at the "Gries" near Schärding on August 16, 1527. Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs, Matthew 5, verse 10.

On August 16, 1977, a commemoration ceremony for the 450th anniversary of the death of the Kaiser took place in Schärding with a large number of Protestant Christians from Austria and Germany.

Leonhard Kaiser's day of remembrance in the Evangelical Name Calendar of the Evangelical Church in Germany is August 16 .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Leonhard Kaiser in the Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints

Web links

Commons : Leonhard Kaiser  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Kaiser, Leonhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kaysser, Leonhard; Kayser, Leonhard; Keizer, Leonhard; Käser, Leonhard; Kaiser, Lienhard; Kaiser, Lenhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Lutheran theologian and reformer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1480
PLACE OF BIRTH Raab
DATE OF DEATH August 16, 1527
Place of death Schärding