JOHANN

BUGENHAGEN (1485-1558)  , surnamed POMERANIIS, German Protestant reformer, was born at Wollin near Stettin on the 24th of June 1485 . At the university of Greifswald he gained much distinction as a humanist, and in 1504 was appointed by the abbot of the Praemonstratensian monastery at Belbuck rector of the town school at Treptow . In 1509 he was ordained priest and became a vicar in the collegiate Marienkirche at Treptow; in 1517 he was appointed lecturer on the Bible and Church Fathers at the abbey school at Belbuck . In 1520 Luther's De Captivitate Babylonica converted him into a zealous supporter of the Reformer's views, to which he won over the abbot among others . In 1521 he went to Wittenberg, where he formed a close friendship with Luther and Melanchthon, and in 1522 he married . He preached 'and lectured in the university, but his zeal and organizing skill soon spread his reforminginfluence far beyond its limits . In 1528 he arranged the church affairs of Brunswick and Hamburg; in 1530 those of Lubeck and Pomerania . In 1537 he was invited to Denmark by Christian III., and remained five years in that country, organizing the church (though only a presbyter, he consecrated the new Danish bishops) and schools . He passed the remainder of his life at Wittenberg, braving the perils of war and persecution rather than desert the place dear to him as the home of the Reformation . He died on the loth of April 1558 . Among his numerous works is a history of Pomerania, which remained unpublished till 1728 . Perhaps his best book is the Interpretatio in Librum Psalmorum (1523), and he is also remembered as having helped Luther in his translation of the Bible .

See Life by H . Hering (

Halle, 1888) ; Emil Gorigk, Bugenhagen and die Protestantisierung Pommerns (1895) . O . Vogt published a collection of Bugenhagen's correspondence in 1888, and a supplement in 189o .