Albrecht von Brandenburg
28th June 2020 - 530th Birthday
24th September 2020 - 475th Anniversary of his Death
Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg, 1490 – 1545,
Elector and Archbishop of Mainz from 1514 to 1545 and Archbishop of Magdeburg from 1513 to 1545.
When Martin Luther wrote his famous 95 Theses and sent these to Albert on 31 October 1517. Albert forwarded the theses to Rome, suspecting Luther of heresy.
Albert's large and liberal ideas, his friendship with Ulrich von Hutten, and his political ambitions, appear to have raised hopes that he could be won over to Protestantism; but after the German Peasants' War of 1525 he ranged himself definitely among the supporters of Catholicism, and was among the princes who joined the League of Dessau in July 1525 (short-lived Association of Catholic rulers in northern Germany during the time of the German Reformation. Its goals were to stop both the rebellion and the proliferation of Martin Luther's teachings).
The new doctrines nevertheless made considerable progress in his dominions, and he was compelled to grant religious liberty to the inhabitants of Magdeburg in return for 500,000 florins.
