Johannes Matthiae Gothus

rdf:langString Johannes Matthiae Gothus

rdf:langString Johannes Matthiae Gothus (29 December 1592 in Västra Husby – 18 February 1670 in Stockholm) was a Swedish Lutheran Bishop of Strängnäs and a professor of Uppsala University, the rector of the , Collegium Illustre (the school for young noblemen run by the House of Nobility) in Stockholm (1626–1629) and the most eminent teacher in Sweden during the seventeenth century. He was Bishop of Strängnäs from 1643 to 1664. Gothus embodies like no other Swedish clergyman during the confessional era the continuity and renewal of the humanist tradition in Sweden. He had very close contact with the Swedish royal house and with European reform circles; he was a dear friend of John Amos Comenius and John Dury. Thus, he exerted influence on the so-called folk teaching, school order of 1649, which he formulated himself, and on organisational issues relating to the Church. In particular, he was the spokesman for a so-called ecumenical, European religious policy. His fate was therefore sealed when, with the guardianship of 1660, the ecclesiastical cycles changed. He was, then, forced to resign from the position as bishop of Strängnäs. As a man of ecumenism, Gothus' has a special position in the Swedish and European Church history. His only equal, in approach and status, is the Bishop Nathan Söderblom.