Stanislaus Hosius
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Stanislaus Hosius (May 5, 1504 - August 5, 1579, born in Cracow, legate to Poland, cardinal and Ermland Warmia Prince-Bishop.
Hosius was the son of Ulrich Hos of Pforzheim and his wife. He studied law at Padua and Bologna, and entering the church became in 1549 bishop of Kulm , in 1551 Prince-Bishop of Ermland, and in 1561 cardinal. Hosius had Jesuit sympathies and actively opposed the Protestant reformation, going so far as to desire a repetition of the St Bartholomew massacre in Poland, Apart from its being "the property of the Roman Church," he regarded the Bible as having no more worth than the fables of Aesop.
Hosius was not distinguished as a theologian, though he drew up the Confessio fidei christiana catholica adopted by the synod of Piotrkow in 1557. He was, however, supreme as a diplomatist and administrator. The pope consecrated Hosius to fight the ongoing conversions to protestantism. Hosius and Martin Cromer were the two bishops most instrumental in keeping Prussia's Ermland region catholic, while the other parts of Prussia became protestant in 1525. 1559 Hosius was called to the imperial seat at Vienna, where he was to work on the reopening of the Council of Trent. Trent in Tirol was a part of the Holy Roman Empire and was the seat of the head of the Prince-Bishops. For his successful work Hosius was promoted to cardinal and in 1563 he returned to Ermland. 1566 the pope consecrated him as Legate to Poland.
Besides carrying through many difficult negotiations, he founded the lyceum of Braunsberg in order to counter the rapidly spreading Protestants. It became the centre of the Roman Catholic mission among Protestants. 1572 pope Gregory XIII declared Hosius as member of the Congregatio Germania. He died at Capranica near Rome on the 5th of August 1579.
A special friend to Hosius was Blessed Peter Canisius. Both Kromer and Hosius left many German-language records of their speeches and sermons in their years of duty in Ermland/Warmia.
A collected edition of his works was published at Cologne in 1584. Life by A Eichhorn (Mainz, 1854), 2 vols.
Some parts from This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopędia Britannica.
no:Stanislaw Hosius
