Nicholas Storch

Nicholas Storch (* before 1500 in Zwickau, † after 1536, first name also Nicolaus ) was a cloth weaver and lay preacher from the Saxon town of Zwickau.

Life

Storch was one of the simple artisans, which ushered in the era of the Reformation there independent churches and social reforms. He had visions and saw himself as a prophet of God with the mission to fight the corrupt Catholic Church. He led a small group of like -minded people who were known as the Zwickau prophets. The Zwickau prophets gained through their visionary sermons enormous popularity and divided the citizenry of Zwickau. They advocated public ownership, poor relief and an expropriation of the monasteries, if necessary also resistance against princely violence.

Stork rejected infant baptism and approached the teachings of the Baptist. He also influenced Thomas Müntzer strong, the 1521 stayed in Zwickau and stork supported by reforms to the Catholic priest Egranus in his fight. The local Cistercian monastery was dissolved on March 16, 1522 at his urging.

Then cried Nicholas Hausmann, the reformer and preacher at Zwickau Zwickau the Marienkirche, his friend Martin Luther to help; this preached from the end of April public from City Hall to a gathering of 14,000 citizens from the city and surrounding areas, reaching a shift of opinion in favor of more moderate reforms. The Zwickau prophets had to leave the city.

Stork traveled with Müntzer to Wittenberg and impressed there Philipp Melanchthon strong; but after Melanchthon asked about the Elector Luther for help, this handy here too personally. So Storch, Müntzer and Karlstadt had to leave town again. They became traveling preachers. That stork had died after the suppression of the peasant revolt in Saxony (25 May 1525 Battle of Frankenhausen ) in Munich in a hospital is incorrect. He appeared in 1536 for the last time in the Zwickau Council minutes on.