Erhard of Queis

Erhard of Queis (* 1490 in Storkow ( Lower), † September 10, 1529 in Prussian Holland ) was Bishop of Pomesania. He is considered one of the forerunners of the Reformation in Prussia.

Life

News about the youth of the first Protestant Bishop of Pomesania are not available. As stated in the Universitätsmatrikel of Frankfurt ( Oder), where he matriculated in 1506, he came from Storkow. 1515 he moved to the study of law to Bologna. However, it is not clear where and when he acquired the dignity of Doctor of Laws. Already in 1523 he met us as chancellor of Duke Frederick II of Legnica. Liegnitzer Am Hof Master Albrecht has him I learned of Brandenburg- Ansbach and induced him to enter the Teutonic Order and to take over the vacant second Prussian bishopric. On September 10, 1523 by Erhard Queis was elected by the chapter of Marie Werder bishop. From the papal side, he has never been confirmed. His residence he took in giant castle.

The Master Albrecht had experienced in the legal and administrative nature bishop great confidence. He sent him as a representative of the Order to negotiations to Bratislava and Krakow, where it was deliberate on the secularization of the religious country, and he did homage to the King of Poland for Albrecht. Later he had to fulfill such orders. When he accompanied the Duke to Gdansk in 1526, he was already wearing secular dress.

Queis has also completed in Kiel the marriage contract, as Duke Albrecht solicited the hand of the Danish king's daughter Dorothea. Political services for the young Duchy took him a long time on the fulfillment of his ecclesiastical duties. Queis stood as the bishop Georg von Polentz entirely on the side of the Reformation. The end of 1524 published Queis his reformation program " themes episcopi Riesenburgensis ". Here he finds that there are only two sacraments instituted by Christ, and that human institutions should be abolished in the Church.

For the church, the bishop urged the German language, and forbade the veneration of the Host and the Corpus Christi procession. His 19th thesis is: " Daily Mass is an abomination to God; therefore they should henceforth in any church and nowhere to be held. " priests and religious, the Bishop presented the marriage freely. The 1525 adopted for the Duchy of Prussia Church Rules, at their head the names of their two Protestant bishops become Polentz and Queis.

Queis had as Polentz ceded his temporal power to the Duke and keep only the offices Marienwerderstraße and Schoenberg. He himself entered into a marriage, with the Duchess Apolonia, daughter of Münster Berger Duke Viktorin. Apolonia had been before marriage nun in the Poor Clare Monastery chasing, she died 1534th Erhard of Queis died in 1529 on his way back from parliament in Königsberg.