Welcome back to another episode of Five Minutes in Church History.

Let's go back to 1521 and to Zwickau in Saxony, Germany.

Zwickau is about 200 kilometers south of Wittenberg.

There, a small group of lay preachers were settling on an

alternative to Luther's view and the Reformation across the rest of Germany. They were holding

doctrines that would come to be identified with the Anabaptist movement, which started formerly

in 1525 in Switzerland, but here we see some precursors to it.

A key figure here is Thomas Munzer. He was a Roman Catholic priest, and like Luther, he was

troubled by the Roman Catholic Church, and he eventually joined with Luther at Wittenberg, and after a few years,

Luther dispatched Munser to Zwickau. Munzer developed a very heightened eschatology. He thought

the end of the world was very eminent and began his apocalyptic preaching. In addition to his eschatology,

Munzer was also influenced heavily by mysticism,

and he himself was becoming more and more of a mystic.

Well, there at Zwickau, he joined up with a lay preacher

who was also a weaver, Nicholas Storch. They put a high emphasis on receiving direct

revelation from God, hence the Zwickal prophets. In fact, Munzer would say, I, Thomas Munser, beseech the

church not to listen to a mute God, but a living and a speaking one.

Well, in April of 1521, Munzer, because of his extreme views, was expelled from Zwickhow.

That same month, on April 18, 1521, to be exact, Luther developed his Here I Stand speech at Verms.

And we know that after Verms, Luther was sent in exile to the castle overlooking the

Vortberg.

He would arrive there in May of 1521 and he would be there until March of 1522.

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