Simon Sulzer

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Simon Sulzer

Simon Sulzer (born September 23, 1508 in Schattenhalb ; † June 22, 1585 in Basel ) was a Reformed theologian , reformer and antistes at Basel Minster .

Life

Sulzer was a priest child. He received his training in Bern and Lucerne . The sudden death of his father, the provost of Interlaken , caused him to earn a living by handwork. He worked as a barber in Strasbourg and used this time to hear lectures from Martin Bucer and Wolfgang Capito . In 1531 he went to Basel , where Simon Grynaeus took care of him . Here he worked as a proofreader in Johann Heerwagen's print shop and was also a teacher. From 1533 he worked as a teacher in Bern and made services to schools.

At the instigation of the Bern Council, he continued his studies in 1537 and obtained his master's degree . As a friend of the Wittenberg Agreement , he was in Wittenberg in 1536 and, as he himself told his friend Joachim von Watt , was greatly impressed by Martin Luther . The disagreement with him is due to the Swiss. In the meantime the older reformers Berchtold Haller and Franz Kolb had died in Bern , and a new direction was introduced by the theologians appointed by Strasbourg, to whom he adhered. As a learned and skilled man, he soon became the head of the Bernese clergy. Its effectiveness was one-sided and not always clear. He consumed himself in a fight with Ulrich Zwingli's followers , to whom he finally had to give way in 1548.

In 1549 he was accepted into Basel, first as pastor at the Peterkirche , then as professor (in 1552 he was rector of the university) and in 1553 as an antistes of the Basel church. Here he proceeded more cautiously than in Bern. His church work was aimed at reaching an agreement between Germans and Swiss, although he kept a distance from the Zwinglian and Calvinist tendencies. His Lutheran inclinations made him stand up for the Formula Concordiae against the Helvetica posterior , also advocate private confessions, organ playing and ringing bells. This put him in a crooked position with the Swiss churches and aroused opposition. For Basel, his work was a temporary episode.

When the Reformation was introduced in the margraviate of Baden-Durlach , he played a major role in it. He ordained evangelical preachers for this area and conducted church visits in 1556. Without giving up his office in Basel, he worked as superintendent in Baden. Sulzer was a man filled with eagerness to work and responsible well into his old age, whom many of the clergy venerated.

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predecessor Office successor
Oswald Myconius Antistes of the Basel Church
1553–1585 		Johann Jakob Grynaeus
personal data
SURNAME Sulzer, Simon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Reformed theologian and reformer
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1508
PLACE OF BIRTH Half of the shadow
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 1585
Place of death Basel