Christoph Pezel
German theologian
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Why Is Christoph Pezel Influential?
(Suggest an Edit or Addition)According to Wikipedia, Christoph Pezel was an influential Reformed Theologian who introduced the Reformed confession to Nassau-Dillenburg and Bremen. Education and service in Saxony Pezel was born in Plauen and educated at the universities of Jena and Wittenberg, his studies at the latter institution being interrupted by his teaching for several years. In 1557 he was appointed professor in the philosophical faculty and in 1569 was ordained preacher at the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg. In the same year he entered the theological faculty, where he soon became involved in the disputes between the followers of Melanchthon and Luther, writing the Apologia verae doctrinae de definitione Evangelii and being the chief author of the Wittenberg catechism of 1571. He soon took a leading position as a zealous Philippist, but in 1574 he and his colleagues were summoned to Torgau and required to give up the Calvinistic theory of the Lord's Supper. As they refused to subscribe to the articles presented to them, they were placed under surveillance in their own houses and forbidden to discuss or to print anything on the questions in dispute. They were afterward deposed from their professorships, and in 1576 were banished. Pezel, who had hitherto been at Zeitz, now went to Eger; but in 1577, like his fellow exiles, received a position from Count John of Nassau, first at the school in Siegen and later at Dillingen.
