Johann Campanus (also Johannes Campanus) was a Flemish religious reformer of the sixteenth century. In his ''Autobiographical Letter to Johann Campanus'' (1531), a public Latin epistle,

Sebastian Franck Sebastian Franck (20 January 1499 Donauwörth, Swabia – c. 1543 Basel, Switzerland) was a 16th-century German freethinker, humanist, and radical reformer. Biography Franck was born in 1499 in Donauwörth, Swabia. Because of this he styled hims ...

exhorted Campanus to maintain freedom of thought in face of the charge of heresy. As a preacher, Campanus knew the Anabaptist prophet Melchior Hoffman (c.1495–1543). Hoffman had developed a Zwinglian view of the

Eucharist The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was instit ...

. Martin Luther himself was alarmed at this. At a colloquy of preachers in

Flensburg Flensburg (; Danish, Low Saxon: ''Flensborg''; North Frisian: ''Flansborj''; South Jutlandic: ''Flensborre'') is an independent town (''kreisfreie Stadt'') in the north of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Flensburg is the centre of the ...

on 8 April 1529, Hoffman, Campanus, and others were put on the defensive. Hoffman maintained (against the "magic" of the Lutheran interpretation) that the function of the Eucharist, like that of preaching, is nothing more than an appeal for spiritual union with Christ.

References

* Year of birth missing 16th-century deaths People from Maaseik Flemish priests Belgian Anabaptists hee hee like miceal jackson {{Belgium-bio-stub