Johann Heinrich Schulz

Johann Heinrich Schulz ( * 1739, † 1823) was a German Lutheran pastor who became known as Zopfschulz, Zopfschulze or Zopfprediger.

Education and work

Schulz studied from 1758 to 1761 in Halle ( Saale) and later became a teacher in Berlin. In 1765 he was appointed by the local landlords to the preacher in Gielsdorf, Wilke village and Hirschfelde, where he was 26 years active. In the sermon he gave up wearing the usual wig and was bareheaded with pigtail what like him the nickname Zopfschulze earned.

He has published numerous anonymous writings.

Zopfschulzenprozess

In 1791 he was suspended from office for violating the Wöllnersche religious edict of King Friedrich Wilhelm II. The court of Schulz Berlin Court of Appeal, however, summoned on 21 May 1792 that Schulz could not remain as a Lutheran, but as a spiritual preacher in office. Friedrich Wilhelm II ordered the very day of the decision, the dismissal of the preacher to. The king had to announce the names of those judges who had voted for Schulz and had set against them penalties in the form of loss of benefits, which were repealed in favor paths later. This encroachment on the independence of judges is viewed as a step backwards compared to the progressive development since 1779, in which the Arnold Müller- process had taken place.

Friedrich Wilhelm III. allowed in 1798 a revision of the process in which the violation of the religious edict was confirmed. The king secured Schulz but a life-long care to what this job was as an inspector in the Royal Factory Department, according to sources other than dishes clerk at the porcelain factory in Berlin.

1808 Schulz was forced to retire.