Menso Alting

Menso Alting ( born November 9, 1541 Eelde south of the city of Groningen, † October 7, 1612 in Emden, Ostfriesland ) was an eminent preacher and theologian of the Reformation period.

Menso Alting studied theology in Cologne. He took over in 1565 from Catholicism to the Reformed Church and continued his theological studies in Heidelberg. After completing his studies he worked as a preacher in Helpen and sleen ( Holland ), but had to flee under the Duke of Alva from the Netherlands in July 1567 in the wake of the Spanish Counter- Reformation. In Leiselheim at Worms, in Dirmstein at Frankenthal in the Palatinate and in Heidelberg, he found a new field of work. In October 1575, he came as the successor of Albert Hardenberg Ritzaeus to Emden, where he was to 1612 Head of the presbytery and Präses Coetus of the Reformed preacher of East Friesland.

Alting a major influence on the enforcement of Calvinism in Emden. To ward off the Counter-Reformation, he aspired to a Protestant Union in the spirit of militant Calvinism. This in turn involved him in the debates of the Netherlands with Spain as well as the East Frisian stands with the absolutist tendencies of the Lutheran Count Edzard II and Enno III. of Ostfriesland. Alting co-founded the special status of the city of Emden in the state structure of the county.

Menso Alting was friends with Ubbo Emmius. With it he changed almost daily letters. Ubbo Emmius written soon after the death of his friend, whose biography.

Quote

Peter Friedrich Reershemius writes in his work " Ostfriesländisches preacher Memorial " on Menso Altling: