Kashmiri Bhatta

Online Chat

Add New Qutation

Francis David

Ferenc Dávid (also rendered as Francis David or Francis Davidis; born as Franz David Hertel, c. 1520 – 15 November 1579) was a Unitarian preacher from Transylvania, the founder of the Unitarian Church of Transylvania, and the leading figure of the Nontrinitarian movements during the Protestant Reformation.

Studying Catholic theology in Wittenberg and in Frankfurt an der Oder and first as a Catholic priest, later a Lutheran and then a Calvinist bishop in the Principality of Transylvania, he learnt the teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic and the Protestant churches, but later rejected several of them and came to embrace Unitarianism.

He disputed the Christian view on the Holy Trinity, believing God to be one and indivisible.

Ferenc Dávid was born in Kolozsvár, Hungary (present-day Cluj-Napoca, Romania), to a Transylvanian Saxon father (David Hertel, who worked as a tanner) and to a Hungarian mother. The Hertel/Herthel family was an old Transylvanian Saxon aristocratic family of Kolozsvár.In Latin and Hungarian he used his name as Francis Davidis or Dávid Ferenc after his father's forename David. He had at least three brothers: Gregor, Peter and Nikolaus. Peter and Gregor inherited the job of their father in the guild. Gáspár Heltai, the father of Peter's wife Borbála, was a Protestant Reformer, Lutheran and later Unitarian minister, translator, outstanding author of the Hungarian late Renaissance era. He owned the paper mill and the press of Kolozsvár where several religious and scientific books were made in Hungarian and German.

Ferenc Dávid was raised Catholic. After finishing his studies in the High School of Kolozsvár (today Cluj Napoca, Romania) he went to the Holy Roman Empire to study Catholic theology first at the University of Wittenberg and then later at the Alma Mater Viadrina (University of Frankfurt an der Oder) where he became a Catholic parson.

In 1571, John II Sigismund Zápolya was succeeded by István Báthory, a Roman Catholic, and the policy shifted toward persecution of the new religious institutions. In the same year the new ruler took the press of Gyulafehérvár back from the Unitarians. On the Diet of 1572 in Marosvásárhely (today Târgu Mureș, Romania) the religious laws were strengthened, but it declared the prohibition of the changing of religion. When, under the influence of Johannes Sommer, rector of the Gymnasium of Kolozsvár, Dávid denied the necessity of invoking Jesus Christ in prayer (about 1572), the attempted mediation of Faustus Socinus, upon Blandrata's request, was unsuccessful. Ferenc Dávid was sentenced to life imprisonment in Déva, Principality of Transylvania (today Deva, Romania), and died there in 1579. The ruins of the prison site in the city now hold a memorial for him.

Courtesy--wikipedia
- Francis David

Online Chat

© 2021 - All Rights Reserved