Knight (family)

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Since the Reformation, the Ritter family provided Lutheran preachers in Frankfurt am Main for over six generations from 1533 to 1742 and thus significantly shaped the history of the Frankfurt church. The descendants of the family came to Bohemia in the 18th century and were raised to the Hungarian nobility in 1830 as Ritter de Záhony and in 1869 as Freiherr Ritter von Záhony in the Austrian baron .

Lutheran preachers in Frankfurt am Main

  1. According to family tradition, Matthias Ritter the Elder (* 1485; † 1536) was friends with Martin Luther and was appointed by the Frankfurt City Council in 1533 as a preacher at the Hospital Church of the Holy Spirit . Before that he had been a deacon in Eichtersheim for a long time . He died in Frankfurt am Main in 1536.
  2. Matthias Ritter the Younger (* 1526 in Eichtersheim; † March 14, 1588 in Frankfurt am Main) attended the Frankfurt Latin School with Jakob Micyllus and studied from 1542 at the University of Wittenberg with Luther and Melanchthon . After working as court master of two Frankfurt patrician sons and extensive travels through France, he returned to Frankfurt in 1552, initially as assistant preacher at the hospital and at baptisms . In April 1554 he became a preacher at the Katharinenkirche , later at the Barfüßerkirche , and a leading member of the Ministry of Preachers alongside Hartmann Beyer . Ritter and Beyer ensured that in Frankfurt the sharply denominational course of the Gnesiolutherans prevailed against the Philippists who were willing to compromise. At his instigation, the city council banned Reformed worship in Frankfurt in1561.
  3. Sebastian Ritter (born May 29, 1579; † March 13, 1609) learned the French language like his father while traveling through France. After his return to Frankfurt he became a preacher of the Dutch congregation of the Augsburg Confession, founded by Casiodoro de Reina in 1585, at the Weißfrauenkirche .
  4. Johann Balthasar Ritter (I.) (* 1606; † August 10, 1683) officiated like his father as a German and French preacher in the Dutch community. He was a contemporary of the important Frankfurt senior Philipp Jakob Spener and did not stand out through his own significant achievements. His two sons,
  5. Johann Balthasar Ritter (II.) (Born April 3, 1645 - † February 25, 1719) and Lucas Sebastian Ritter (1648–1709) were also pastors. Johann Balthasar initially held a position in Paris, then returned to Frankfurt as his father's assistant preacher and took over his position after his father's death. In 1674 and 1702 he revised the hymn book used in the Dutch community. Lucas Sebastian became a preacher in Strasbourg .
  6. Johann Balthasar Ritter (III.) (* October 27, 1674; † January 3, 1743) became pastor in Niedererlenbach in 1703, and preacher in Frankfurt from 1705. From 1732 until shortly before his death he belonged to the consistory and was thus one of the most respected members of the Ministry of Preachers . His main work is the Evangelical Monument of the City of Frankfurt am Main ,published in 1726, the first church history work on the Reformation in Frankfurt. While the first volume describes the period from the Reformation to 1555, the second volume was only available as a manuscript until 1600 when Ritter died. His work later formed an important basis for research on church history by Anton Kirchner and Hermann Dechent .

With Johann Balthasar Ritter's death, the unbroken line of the Frankfurt clergy in this family ended. His older son, who had also studied theology, had already died while the younger son had chosen another profession.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Baron Knights of Zahony
  2. ↑ a b Jürgen Telschow, Elisabeth Reiter: The Protestant Pastors of Frankfurt am Main , Evangelical Regional Association Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-922179-01-0 , p. 252f.