Stephan Gerlach

rdf:langString Stephan Gerlach

rdf:langString Stephan Gerlach

rdf:langString Stephan Gerlach

rdf:langString

rdf:langString Lecturer

rdf:langString Preacher

rdf:langString Lutheran theologian

rdf:langString Stephan Gerlach (Latin: Stephanus Gerlachius) was a German Lutheran theologian. Gerlach was an extremely important figure in the second half of the 16th century. He was tasked with a special mission in Constantinople, namely to establish an alliance between Orthodoxy and Lutheranism against Catholicism. This mission failed, nevertheless, he signed the Brest Union. From 1573 to 1578 he was in Constantinople as the first assistant and clergyman of the ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire - Baron David Ungnad von Sonnegg. He wrote a diary, one of the most cited sources in the historical literature about the situation in Constantinople in recent years of the "Kingdom of the Slavs", i.e. after the death of Selim II and just before the outbreak of the Long Turkish War. Upon his return, he became professor of theology (1586) and head of the Protestant district in Tübingen, and he wrote against Calvinists and Jesuits. He died in Tübingen in 1612. Gerlach purchased a few Greek manuscripts from the library of Michael Cantacuzenus and sent them to Germany. was published in full in German only in 1674, thanks to his grandson Samuel Gerlach, who collected, arranged and translated into German his "Turkish diary" of his grandfather, inserting a number of translated primary documents translated, including letters and more. Today, the diary is a bibliographical rarity that has not been republished in German and has never been translated into English. Parts of the diary have been published in other languages.