Background
He was born on January 6, 1493 in Örebro, in south-central Sweden and was the son of a local blacksmith, Olaus Petri.
(Mark Twain once famously said "there was but one solitary...)
Mark Twain once famously said "there was but one solitary thing about the past worth remembering, and that was the fact that it is past and can't be restored." Well, over recent years, The British Library, working with Microsoft has embarked on an ambitious programme to digitise its collection of 19th century books. There are now 65,000 titles available (that's an incredible 25 million pages) of material ranging from works by famous names such as Dickens, Trollope and Hardy as well as many forgotten literary gems , all of which can now be printed on demand and purchased right here on Amazon. Further information on The British Library and its digitisation programme can be found on The British Library website.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003OYIKZQ/?tag=2022091-20
clergyman judge reformer writer
He was born on January 6, 1493 in Örebro, in south-central Sweden and was the son of a local blacksmith, Olaus Petri.
He was educated at the Carmelite monastery in his home town, and proceeded thence to the universaties of Leipzig and Wittenberg in Germany.
When he returned home from Germany in 1518 he was thoroughly acquainted with the new theology of Martin Luther. In 1520 Olavus was ordained deacon, and in 1523 came into prominence when the newly elected king, Gustav Eriksson Vasa, was looking for men of ability to direct the church into the channels of the Reformation. In 1524 he was called to be secretary of the city council of Stockholm and deacon-preacher at the Ecclesia Stockholmensis, the cathedral church of St. Nicholas in the modern diocese of Stockholm. In 1531 he relinquished his secretaryship and became chancellor to the king, a post which he held for only two years. His independent spirit and impetuosity caused the King to dismiss him. Olavus was the first real democrat in the best modern sense to appear in Sweden, but his outspokenness made him an unsatisfactory minister of state in the circumstances of the 16th century. In 1540 Olavus Petri suddenly fell from royal favor; the immediate cause was that the King discovered that Olavus and a former chancellor knew of a plot to murder him but had failed to disclose it, since they had heard about it under the seal of confession. Both men were condemned to death, but reprieved upon the payment of a heavy fine. Although this cast a shadow over the remaining years of his life, Olavus so far recovered the royal favor that two years later he was reappointed secretary to the Stockholm city council, and shortly afterwards made pastor of the Ecclesia Stockholmensis, having been ordained priest in 1539. The literary activity of Olavus Petri began with his first promotion in 1524, and between 1526 and 1531 he produced no fewer than 16 books in Swedish. This was the more remarkable in that before his time there had existed only eight books in the vernacular, no one of which was of any outstanding merit. With his younger brother Laurentius, who became archbishop of Uppsala in 1531, Olavus translated the Bible into Swedish and also arranged a hymnbook. He is perhaps best known for his History of Sweden, his judicial regulations, which are still printed as an introduction to Sweden's Code of Laws, and for his two liturgical works, the Manual of 1529 and the Swedish Mass of 1531. The Manual, which was the first vernacular prayer book to appear in Europe, contains seven offices, including those of baptism, marriage, burial, and the visitation of the sick and of prisoners under sentence of death. Olavus Petri died in 1552, beloved of the people of Sweden, who saw in him some of their own best qualities.
(Mark Twain once famously said "there was but one solitary...)
His independent spirit and impetuosity caused the King to dismiss him.
A man of humble heart, deeply spiritual, his first and last thought was for the truth of the Gospel and its propagation by the national church.
In 1525 Olaus married.