Johann Bugenhagen

Bugenhagen, Johann (1485–1558), Lutheran theologian. He played a leading part in the organization of Lutheran Church life in N. Germany and Denmark. The ‘Brunswick Church Order’ of 1528 was mainly his work. In 1537 he went to Denmark; here he rearranged ecclesiastical affairs on a Protestant basis, himself consecrating seven men as superintendents or ‘bishops’. The Danish Church thus lost the Apostolic Succession.

Johann Bugenhagen , 1485-1558, German Protestant reformer. Born in Pomerania, he is sometimes called Dr. Pomeranus. Bugenhagen, an ordained priest, was attracted to the reform movement by Martin Luther's writings. In 1521 he went to Wittenberg and entered upon a lasting friendship with Luther and Melanchthon. He was a lecturer in the university and pastor of the principal church in Wittenberg. Much of Bugenhagen's attention was devoted to ecclesiastical and educational organization in Brunswick, Hamburg, Lübeck, Pomerania, and Denmark. Bugenhagen helped Luther in his translation of the Bible. Of his own literary works the most important is Interpretatio in librum Psalmorum (1523).

Bibliography: See biography by W. M. Ruccius (1924).