Rudolf Pfister (theologian)

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Rudolf Pfister (born July 23, 1909 in Zurich ; † May 11, 2000 in Urdorf ) was a Swiss Protestant clergyman and university professor .

Life

Rudolf Pfister was the son of the engineer Heinrich Friedrich Jakob Pfister and his wife Margareta Emilie (née Rinderknecht) and grew up in Horgen on Lake Zurich . His grandfather was the dean of Wädenswil , Johann Jakob Pfister (1849–1935). His uncle, the pastor and psychologist Oskar Pfister , was in lively correspondence with Sigmund Freud .

He enrolled at the University of Zurich and began studying theology , including the lectures on the history of the church and dogma by the church historian Fritz Blanke ; he continued his studies at the University of Heidelberg .

In 1933 he took his concordat examination and was ordained in the Zurich regional church , after which he became pastor in Hausen am Albis in 1934 and received his doctorate in Zurich under Emil Brunner in 1937 with a dissertation on the problem of original sin at Zwingli . From 1940 he was pastor in Winterthur-Wülflingen and from 1950 to 1976 pastor in the Altstetten district in Zurich . In addition, he was still a field preacher and in "retirement" from 1976 until 1989 in pastoral offices.

After his habilitation with the treatise The Bliss of Chosen Heiden by Zwingli , he began to hold lectures as a private lecturer at the theological faculty of the University of Zurich in 1950 , which he continued as titular professor for the history of the church and dogma from 1958 to 1976.

Rudolf Pfister had been married to Béatrice, daughter of the hotelier Friedrich Fahrni, since 1934 .

Spiritual, literary and scientific work

As a church historian, Rudolf Pfister dealt intensively with Huldrych Zwingli and church studies and emerged as the author of the three-volume work on the history of the church in Switzerland . Up until then there was no such work; The work History of the Catholic Church in Switzerland by Theodor Schwegler did not take into account the history of Swiss Protestantism .

He also advocated ecumenism and was active as President of the Swiss Protestant People's Federation , to which the Swiss Evangelical Press Service belonged until 1975 .

As early as the 1940s, he was actively involved in the Zwingli main typefaces, in which he edited nine of Zwingli's typefaces in two volumes; on this he published articles in the Zwingliana magazine from 1947 to 1985 ; Further publications were made in Der Grundriß, Swiss Reformed Monthly , in the Theological Journal , in the Evangelical Mission Magazine , in the Church Gazette for Reformed Switzerland , in the Neue Schweizer Rundschau , in the Lexicon of Women , in the Neue Deutsche Biographie , in the archive for the history of the Reformation , in religion in the past and present , in the Evangelical Church Lexicon, in the Church Messenger for the Canton of Zurich , in the World Church Lexicon , in the Protestant magazine , bi-monthly publication for contemporary denominational issues , in the Tages-Anzeiger , in Sie und Er , in the Handbook of Reformed Switzerland , in Swiss political correspondence and in the Swiss Evangelical Press Service , plus numerous book reviews in various magazines.

With his doctorate and habilitation, he identified himself as a Zwingli researcher and his works are still used in research today. After Oskar Farner's death in 1959, he looked through Volume 4 of his great Zwingli biography and completed it. From 1958 he was also co-editor of the historical-critical Zwingli edition.

To this end, he dealt with the reformer Heinrich Bullinger and wrote several articles and essays on this, for example on his assessment of the Tridentine .

Fonts (selection)

  • Problem of original sin at Zwingli . Leipzig 1939.
  • Zwingli, the statesman . Zurich: Zwingli Verlag, 1942.
  • Main fonts . Zurich 1941–1963.
  • The friendship between Guillaume Farel and Huldrych Zwingli . Zurich 1947.
  • The bliss of chosen pagans at Zwingli . Published in Evangelisches Missions-Magazin 95, 1951, pp. 70–80.
  • The Reformation Community of Locarno 1540–1555 . 1955.
  • For the sake of faith - The evangelical refugees from Locarno and their admission to Zurich in 1555 . Zollikon-Zurich, Evangelischer Verlag, 1955.
  • Oskar Farner; Rudolf Pfister: Reformatory renewal of the church and people in Zurich and in the Confederation 1525–1531 . Zurich Zwingli-Verlag 1960.
  • Pierre Viret: 1511-1571 . 1961.
  • The Second Vatican Council of 1962 and we Protestants . Zurich: Zwingli Verlag, 1962.
  • Fritz Blanke; Oskar Farner ; Rudolf Pfister: Huldrych Zwingli's comment on true and false religion . Zurich Zwingli-Verlag 1963.
  • Confessional in 17th century Switzerland: Claudius Schobinger . 1969.
  • Church history of Switzerland .
    • Volume 1: From the beginning to the end of the Middle Ages . Zurich: Zwingli Verlag 1964.
    • Volume 2: From the Reformation to the Second Villmerger War . Zurich: Theological Publishing House, 1974.
    • Volume 3: From 1720 to 1950 . Zurich: Theological Publishing House, 1985.
  • Territorial diversity and Evangelical Reformed Church in Switzerland . Zurich 1971.
  • On Bullinger's assessment of the Council of Trent . 1975.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Isabelle Noth: Sigmund Freud - Oskar Pfister: Correspondence 1909-1939 . Theological Verlag Zürich, 2014, ISBN 978-3-290-17615-0 ( google.de [accessed April 10, 2020]).
  2. ↑ Swiss Evangelical Press Service EPD, Zurich. Retrieved April 10, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Pfister, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss Protestant clergyman and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH July 23, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH May 11, 2000
Place of death Urdorf