Martin Bucer

Timeline

1. 1506–1523Heidelberg · PalatinateBucer was born in Schlestadt, Alsace, entered the Dominicans at about fifteen, later studied scholastic theology at Heidelberg and encountered Erasmian humanism. At the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518 he heard Luther in person and turned toward justification by faith. He was released from the order in 1521, married a former nun in the parish of Landstuhl in 1522, and after being excommunicated in 1523 moved on to Strasbourg.
2. 1523–1529Strasbourg · AlsaceBucer gained protection in Strasbourg through his parents' citizenship and gradually became the city's leading reformer. He promoted vernacular preaching, reorganized worship, and established a disciplined civic church under elder supervision, making Strasbourg a hub of the southern German reform and a refuge for exiled Protestants.
3. 1529–1536Marburg · HesseIn October 1529 Bucer attended the Marburg Colloquy, pressing Luther and Zwingli toward agreement on the Eucharist, but the two sides still broke over whether Christ's body is truly present in the bread and wine. In 1530 he helped draft the Tetrapolitan Confession. In 1536 he reached the Wittenberg Concord with Melanchthon and others, bringing the southern German cities and Lutheranism temporarily closer in their Eucharistic wording.
4. 1548–1551Cambridge · CambridgeshireAfter Charles V imposed the Augsburg Interim, Bucer could no longer remain in Strasbourg and accepted Archbishop Cranmer's invitation to England in 1549, becoming Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. He wrote On the Kingdom of Christ and commented on the 1549 Book of Common Prayer in his Censura, influencing the Eucharistic and pastoral wording of the 1552 revision. He died of illness in Cambridge on 28 February 1551 and was buried in Great St Mary's.