Pierre Viret

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Pierre Viret
Bas-relief by Pierre Viret

Pierre Viret (* 1511 in Orbe VD ; † May 4, 1571 in Orthez ) was a Swiss reformer who worked in Geneva , Lausanne and France .

Life

Viret studied (at the same time with Johannes Calvin ) in Paris at the Collège de Montaigu , but had to return to his homeland in Vaud in 1531 because of his partisanship for the Reformation . At the request of Guillaume Farel , he held evangelical sermons in his hometown of Orbe and the surrounding villages from May 6, 1531. From 1534 he supported Farel in implementing the Reformation in Geneva. When the Reformation was officially accepted there in 1536 and Calvin began his ministry as a preacher, Viret moved to Lausanne, which had just come under the rule of Bern . Here he took part in the Lausanne Religious Discussion in October, through which the Reformation was officially accepted, and then worked as a preacher and head of the Reformed Academy, which was of great importance for the Swiss Reformation. After Calvin and Farel's expulsion in 1538, he returned to Geneva, but then successfully campaigned for Calvin to be recalled. In 1542 he was able to resume his work in Lausanne.

Because of a dispute over church discipline , he was deposed by the Bernese council in 1559 and moved back to Geneva. Since most of the teachers at the Lausanne Academy accompanied him, the Académie de Genève was founded with them in Geneva . His poor health prompted him to visit the warmer southern France in 1562. Here he took a leading role in building the Huguenot Church . In Nîmes he was successful as a preacher and headmaster, but moved to Montpellier and Lyon in 1563 and to Orange in 1565 . From 1566 he spent the last years of his life on behalf of Jeanne d'Albret in Navarra as a teacher at the Academy in Orthez. He died on the way to the Synod of La Rochelle in 1571.

meaning

Viret not only acted as a preacher and teacher, but also through his numerous and extensive publications. In addition to interpreting the Bible, he was particularly concerned with questions of ethics, including political ethics.

A relief on the Geneva Reformation Monument shows how Pierre Viret performed a Reformed baptism for the first time in Geneva on February 22, 1534 at a meeting in a house on Rue Basses in the presence of Guillaume Farel and Antoine Froment .

Fonts (selection)

  • Dialogues du désordre qui est à présent au monde. Des d'iceluy, et du moyen pour y remedier, desquelz l'ordre et le tiltre s'ensuit . Geneva 1545, ed. by Ruxandra Vulcan, Labor et fides, Genève 2012
  • Exposition familière sur le symbols des apôtres contenant le articles de la foi et un sommaire de la religion chrétienne . Geneva 1543.
  • Remonstrances aux fidèles qui conversent avec les papistes . Geneva 1547.
  • Exposition familière de l'oraison de notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ et des choses dignes de considérer sur icelle . Geneva 1548.
  • Traités divers pour l'instruction des fidèles qui résident et conversent ès lieux et pays esquels il ne leur est permis de vivre en la pureté et liberté de l'Évangile . Geneva, 1559.
  • Exposition familière des principaux points du Catéchisme et de la doctrine Chrétienne . Geneva 1561.
  • Instruction chrétienne en la doctrine de la Loi et de l'Evangile , Geneva 1564 (new edition in: Pierre Viret: Oeuvres complètes, vol. I. Ed. V. A.-L. Hofer. ISBN 2-8251-1416-2 )
  • L'Interim , Lyon 1565

literature

  • Charles Schmidt: Wilhelm Farel and Peter Viret. Based on handwritten and simultaneous sources . Elberfeld 1860.
  • Robert Dean Linder: The political Ideas of Pierre Viret . Geneva 1964.
  • Georges Bavaud: Le reformer Pierre Viret . Geneva 1989
  • Johannes Madey :  Viret, Pierre. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 17, Bautz, Herzberg 2000, ISBN 3-88309-080-8 , Sp. 1492.  ( Article / beginning of article in the Internet archive )
  • Willem Balke: Jean Calvin and Pierre Viret . In: Peter Opitz (Ed.): Calvin in the context of the Swiss Reformation. Historical and theological contributions to Calvin research . Zurich 2003, pp. 57–92.
  • Michael W. Bruening: Calvinism's First Battleground: Conflict and Reform in the Pays de Vaud, 1528-1559 . Springer 2005
  • Karine Crousaz: Pierre Viret (1511-1571) . In: André Holenstein (Ed.): Bern's mighty time. Rediscovered in the 16th and 17th centuries . Bern 2006. p. 189 ff.
  • Michael W. Bruening: Pierre Viret and Geneva . In: Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte , 99 (2008), pp. 175–197
  • Jean-Marc Berthoud: Pierre Viret: Forgotten Giant of the Reformation . Zurich 2010.
  • Karine Crousaz and Daniela Solfaroli Camillocci (eds.): Pierre Viret et la diffusion de la Réforme: pensée, action, contextes religieux . Editions Antipodes, Lausanne 2014, ISBN 978-2-88901-054-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Die kleine Enzyklopädie , Encyclios-Verlag, Zurich, 1950, Volume 2, page 856; according to other information in Pau
  2. ^ Emil Dönges: Wilhelm Farel. A reformer of French-speaking Switzerland. Through 2nd edition (1st edition 1897). Ernst-Paulus-Verlag, Neustadt / Weinstrasse 1993, p. 86.
personal data
SURNAME Viret, Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss reformer in Geneva and Lausanne
DATE OF BIRTH 1511
PLACE OF BIRTH Orbe VD
DATE OF DEATH May 4, 1571
Place of death Orthez