Tuesday, September 5, 2023

It is the 5th of September, 2023. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

For the second consecutive day, we find our story beginning in Strasbourg- I note this with some irony as I will be in that Alsatian town within the next two days. And as it has been geographically and politically isolated, changing hands between the French and the Germans, so too has it been theologically. It was the home of the first clerical marriage of the Reformation- that between the Cathedral’s priest Matthias Zell and his wife, the “first woman of the Reformation” Katharina Schütze-Zell.  

Katharina Schütze was born in Strasbourg in 1497. She received a good education, and from her own writings, she became interested in “the things of God” from the age of 10. She also, according to her own writings (she was the most published woman in the 16th century), had a delicate conscience, often doubting her own salvation. In 1518, Matthias Zell was called to the Cathedral, and he had been receptive to Luther’s early criticisms of the church. By 1521, he embraced the Reformation, and Katharina, in reading the early pamphlets of Luther, also became a supporter of the early Reformation. Despite a 20-year age difference, Matthias and Katharina were married in December of 1523. Martin Bucer married the two, then married his own wife and conducted another marriage- the first clerical marriage of the Reformation. All six were excommunicated by the bishop of Strasbourg. This elicited the first published work from Katharina- a defense of clerical marriage. She rebuked the bishop for turning a blind eye to the priests who keep concubines except to fine them and enrich himself.

When some 150 men were booted from a nearby town due to their Reformation sympathies, Katharina arranged for Strasbourg to put them up. She wrote an open letter to the wives left behind- consoling them through an explication of Psalm 51, Isaiah, and the Lord’s prayer.

Strasbourg would, through her hospitality and the theology of her husband and Bucer, become a haven for those persecuted for Reformation sympathies. John Calvin stayed for a period in the city, as did the Swiss reformers Zwingli and Oecolampadius, who stayed with the Zell’s on their way to the Marburg Colloquy with Luther to discuss theology. When Katharina heard that the talks for union broke down over their differing interpretations of the Lord’s Supper, she wrote a sharp letter to Luther.

She was particularly ecumenical- when Melchior Hoffman was arrested and sentenced to death for his radical vision in which he would lead the faithful 144,000 in an epic end-times battle, Katharina would visit him in prison and bring him food and clothing. When a preacher refused to give a service for the wife of an Anabaptist, she went to the burial to offer a benediction. At her husband's own funeral, she caused a bit of scandal when, after the sermon from Bucer, she stood up and said that she didn’t plan on speaking and that she wasn’t a preacher- but like Mary Magdalene, was unwittingly made an apostle to proclaim the news of Jesus’ resurrection so too would she say a word about her beloved husband.  

Her husband's successor, Ludwig Rabus, who had stayed with the Zell’s, preached a sermon in which he made a crass comment about the radical Caspar Schwenckfeld. Zelle, being a long-time friend of Schwenckfeld, brought the issue to Rabus privately, to which he responded publicly in condemning her. This was the occasion for Zell’s most significant writing: a letter to the whole council of Strasbourg, which read as a defense of an ecumenical Protestantism, as well as her own spiritual autobiography in which she defended her knowledge of Luther and her role in bringing the reformation to Strasbourg.

Strong-willed, she was called “a trifle imperious” by Bucer, but it was this which allowed her to commandeer the city resources to care for the sick and the many refugees who found in their Alsace respite from the religious wars raging on account of the Reformation.  

Katharina and Matthias lost both of their children in infancy, but she would be recognized as “the mother of the Reformation”. Katharina Schutz Zell died on, the 5th of September in 1562; she was 65 years old.

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary and Revelation 3:

11 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. 12 The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on them my new name. 13 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 5th of September 2023 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who also has “a radical vision in which he would lead the faithful 144,000 in an epic end-times battle” Christopher Gillespie. 

The show is written and read by a man wishing Lincoln Riley a happy 40th birthday- let’s get that national championship- I’m Dan van Voorhis. 

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be OK.