Rhegius’s influence spread beyond Augsburg. At the imperial diet of 1530, he was actively involved in the composition of the Augsburg Confession and persuaded his good friend Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, to sign it. He was also involved in discussions related to the various Protestant interpretations of the Lord’s Supper, where he retained a neutral position. To him, justification by faith alone was crucial. In other matters, he was confident that Protestants could find a compromise.

Urban Rhegius (1489-1541) held up the papal bull that threatened Martin Luther with excommunication. As cathedral preacher in Augsburg, he had the duty to read it from the pulpit. It was one of his first official tasks since he had taken office a few months earlier.

He had obtained the important position thanks to a friend, for which he had felt very grateful. But this papal bull was not easy to hold, let alone to read. He fulfilled his duty, but kept pondering the matter in his heart. After a year of study and reflection, he wrote a polemical pamphlet in which he argued the real danger was in the bull, not in Luther’s writings.

He obviously encountered opposition. Though not officially dismissed from his post, he returned briefly to Langenargen, his home town. He later moved to the Tyrol, where he served as preacher until 1523, when the Augsburg city council called him back to preach at the Carmelite Church of St. Anna.

Reforming Augsburg

At St. Anna, Rhegius was free to follow his convictions. Times were changing, so much that, in 1525, he could hold the first Protestant Lord’s Supper in Augsburg. He was also able to get married in a public, well-attended ceremony that didn’t raise too many eyebrows. His wife was 20-year old Anna Weissbrucker, the well-educated daughter of a reformed-minded merchant. Anna shared her husband’s passion for biblical languages and is today considered a Hebraist in her own merits. The couple had eleven children, four sons and seven daughters.

Rhegius had already been a prolific writer. He had been proclaimed poet laureate of the empire while he was still completing his studies. Later, during his very first year in Augsburg, he had written two treatises on the dignity of priesthood and pastoral care, largely drawing on his experience as son of a priest.

His second stay in Augsburg saw a proliferation of his works, including a defense of Protestant doctrines against those who accused them of being new. Unlike our generation, 16^th-century people still valued the old and proven and were suspicious of novelties. Rhegius, as most Reformers, was able to point at the ancient roots of Protestant theology, which went back to the Apostle Paul and the church fathers.

Rhegius’s second work was a treatise for the consolation of the sick and dying, which became a best-seller (published in ninety editions and in ten languages).

He also wrote on a variety of important issues of his day. During the 1525 Peasants’ Revolt, he pretty much took the same position as Luther, emphasizing the distinction between the two kingdoms (spiritual and material) and the freedom of the Christian regardless of his or her social status. With this in mind, he reminded serfs to obey their masters while exhorting masters to act in love.

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