Pancratic clamp

Pankratius Klemme , also: Klein (* around 1475 in Hirschberg , Duchy of Schweidnitz , † September 21, 1546 in Danzig ) was a German Evangelical Lutheran theologian and reformer from Danzig.

Life

The Klemme from the Silesian Hirschberg entered the Dominican order in his early years . In 1498 he became cantor in the Johanneskirche in Gdansk, after which he seems to have studied at southern German universities, returned to Gdansk in 1523 and became a preacher at the Johanneskirche in 1526, where he studied Martin Luther's writings in detail. In 1529 he was appointed preacher at the St. Marien Church by the Danzig Council .

Here he began to attack the old scholasticism of the church in sermons, whereupon he aroused offense with his Dominican brothers and they reported that action to the diocesan bishop of Leslau Łukasz II Górka . In 1532 he demanded that Klemme be expelled. The council defended him and pointed to his orthodoxy. Since the spring of 1535 Johannes Dantiscus used himself for him with the king, but this did not work. After the Gdańsk council had created him a new, independent preacher position at St. Mary's Church, the king again demanded his expulsion in March 1537.

Hostility from the Dominicans was also useless, Klemme took off his priestly robe and had been preaching in secular clothing since October 1537. In 1539 he traveled to Martin Luther in Wittenberg to exchange ideas with him about church conditions in Danzig and to attend lectures at the University of Wittenberg . Since then, both have stayed in contact by letter after his return. The Danzig church visit on May 18, 1544 brought a critical situation. The Bishop of Leslau Mikołaj Dzierzgowski gave a sermon on the invocation of the saints and condemned Lutheran teaching in it.

On the same day, Klemme responded in a counter sermon and presented the Catholic way of preaching as lying. The following day he was tried by the bishop's spiritual court and imprisoned for it. A large crowd forced his release and the bishop had to confirm him in his preaching office and appointed him on November 4, 1544 as the first pastor to the Marienkirche, which he held the leading position in the church hierarchy of Danzig until the end of his life. So he advanced to pioneer the Reformation in Gdansk.

literature

• Theodor Hirsch : The preacher Pancratius. A contribution to the history of the Reformation in Danzig . Danzig 1842 ( full text )
• Carsten Kretschmann: Knowledge Popularization - Concepts of Knowledge Dissemination in Transition . Akademie Verlag, 2003. ISBN 3-05-003770-9 . P. 147
• Ernst Bahr:  Klemme, Pankratius. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 33 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Peter Hauptmann : Pankratius clamp. In Religion Past and Present (RGG4) Vol. 4.
• Irmgard Wilhelm-Schaffer:  KLEMME, Pankratius. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 4, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-038-7 , Sp. 34-35.