1572: Johann Sylvan, Antitrinitarian
December 23rd, 2018 Headsman
On this date in 1572, Antitrinitarian Calvinist Johann Sylvan lost his head in a Heidelberg market.
Sylvan — or Johannes Slyvanus — was a pastor and theologian in the service of Calvinist Elector Frederick III.
Frederick’s own Calvinist scruples were theoretically anathema in a Holy Roman Empire whose writ of tolerance did not extend past Lutheranism.
But Sylvan gravitated towards a circle of reformers whose concept of the divine left orthodox Calvinism far behind — “a group of ministers within the Palatine church, who were not only prepared to deny the eternal divinity of Christ, but secretly aspired to promote a further reformation of received doctrine with a view to restoring the pristine monotheism of the faith,” according to this pdf volume, The Heidelberg Antitrinitarians.
This rejection of the long-canonical Christian mystery of threefold godhead formed a recurring subtheme of Europe’s Reformations, its exponents — like Michael Servetus — forever prone to martyrdoms administered by any respectable sect.
This proved to be the case for Sylvan as well; given his dubious theological position within the empire, Elector Frederick might have felt it politically necessary to come down hard on these radicals.
Still, while Sylvan was made the example, others in his Antitrinitarian circle lived to expound their heresies in other lands. Matthias Vehe fled to Transylvania — where a Unitarian Church was founded in 1568, protected by a sympathetic prince — and then to other fellow-travelers in Poland. Adam Neuser also escaped, later converting to Islam and defecting to Ottoman Istanbul, an event that did a lot of lifting for anti-Anti-trinitarian propagandists.
On this day..
- 1521: The rebel Ribbings - 2019
- 1856: Three Italian seamen in Hampshire - 2017
- 1569: Orthodox Metropolitan Philip II of Moscow - 2016
- 1736: Ana de Castro and two Jesuit effigies in a Lima auto de fe - 2015
- 1679: "A number of poor people for the crime of witchcraft" - 2014
- 1605: Niklaus von Gulchen, Nuremberg privy councillor - 2013
- 1926: Petrus Stephanus Hauptfleisch, mother-murderer - 2012
- 1799: Isaac Yeshurun Sasportas, anti-slavery insurrectionist - 2011
- 1942: Sasha Filippov, during the Battle of Stalingrad - 2010
- 1953: Lavrenty Beria, Stalin henchman - 2009
- 1948: Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese war criminals - 2008
- 1559: Anne du Bourg - 2007
Entry Filed under: 16th Century,Beheaded,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,Germany,God,Heresy,History,Holy Roman Empire,Intellectuals,Martyrs,Public Executions,Religious Figures
Tags: 1570s, 1572, adam neuser, anti-trinitarians, december 23, frederick iii, heidelberg, johann sylvan, matthias vehe, Protestant Reformation, theologian, theology
