Martin Bucer

Posted at 5 Minutes in Church History:



Martin Bucer was one of the leading lights of the Reformation in Strasbourg. He was born in 1491 and died in 1551, and he, like Martin Luther, was an Augustinian monk. In 1518, he found himself in Heidelberg at the Augustinian chapter house with Luther himself.

In October 1517, Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the church door at Wittenberg, beginning the Protestant Reformation. Luther’s brothers in the Augustinian order wanted to take him up on his invitation to debate, so they invited him to the Augustinian chapter house in Heidelberg. Luther arrived in April 1518, and rather than presenting the Ninety-Five Theses, he drafted a new set of twenty-nine points for debate.

Bucer was just a young monk in the audience. Seeing the debate had a significant impact on Bucer, and sometime in the next year or two, he was converted. He was one of the first Reformers to leave the monastery and get married. In 1523, he was invited to Strasbourg, and he stayed there until 1548.

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