Schwenckfeld, Kaspar von Ossig

(1489–1561)

   Theologian and Sect Founder.

   Schwenckfeld was born into an aristocratic family in Silesia. He was converted to the principles of the Protestant Reformation, but he held individual opinions on such matters as the Eucharist and Church order. In 1540 he produced his Grosse Confession in which he argued that the humanity of Jesus Christ was, in some sense, divine. As a result he was ostracised by luther and the mainstream Protestant leaders. A small group of his followers survived in Silesia until the early nineteenth century and there is still a small Schwenckfeldian community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

   E.L. Lashlee, The Via Regia: A Study of Caspar Schwenckfeld’s Ideas of Personal Renewal and Church Reform (1969);

   P.L Maier, Caspar Schwenckfeld on the Person and Work of Christ (1959);

   S. Schultz, Caspar Schwenckfeld von Ossig (1946).