Hans Tausen, reformer and forefather

I'd like to tell you about one of my ancestors, the Danish reformer Hans Tausen, often called the Danish Martin Luther.

Hans Tausen was born in 1494 on a farm in Eastern Funen. Twelve years old he had had enough of the cows and ploughshares and ran away from home, seeking knowledge from books. He eventually ended up in Antvorskov monastery, which at the time was the principal Roman Catholic monastery in Denmark. There they recognised the young man's talents and in 1523, after several similar journeys where he among other things acquired a master of arts degree, Tausen was sent to study in Wittenberg. There he met Luther and heard him preach. Hans Tausen was converted to Lutheranism. When he came in 1525 he took to the pulpit of the monastery church in Antvorskov, where he preached that man was saved through faith alone and not by works.

This sermon marked the beginning of a strong opposition and persecution of Tausen by the Roman church in Denmark. He was thrown into prison in Viborg at one point, where every day crowds of people would gather outside his cell to hear him preach through the barred window. Despite the scandalous nature of his preaching, Tausen was a diplomat and made friends with the local Catholic authorities who allowed him to preach in the parish church Sunday afternoons after the regular service had ended. Soon the church proved too small and Tausen preached to crowds outside in the market place from the church tower. The popularity of Tausen's gospel soon created tensions though and when he and his followers were barred from using local churches, they simply broke down the doors of one, where Tausen would preach from the pews.

Though his relations with the Catholic authorities understandably proved strained, Tausen developed friendships with the secular authorities of his day. King Frederick I (1471-1533), a Catholic, took Tausen under his wing. His successor, Christian III (1503-1559) implemented the Reformation in Denmark, working closely with Tausen among others. It was Frederick I who brought Tausen to Copenhagen for the first time and soon his preaching had so revolutionised things there, that monasteries had to close because of the lack of public support. There was a two year period after Frederick's death where Tausen's fate was uncertain. But thank God for violent regents: After two years of civil war, the Protestant Christian III took over and started reforming Denmark from the top down.

There's a story about the early period in Copenhagen. Once during high mass, a Lutheran trouble maker walked up to the priest, took the chalice out of his hand while he was transsubstantiating it and threw it on the floor. As he ran out, a monk chasing him and the congregation laughing, Hans Tausen stepped forth and, like a true Reformer, loudly recited the first verses of Revelation 18.

"Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!
She has become a home for demons
and a haunt for every evil spirit,
a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird.
For all the nations have drunk
the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries."

You've got to love anti-papal apocalypticism!

After Christian III made Denmark Protestant, Tausen was initially a bit overlooked. He continued on with his regular priestly duties in both Copenhagen and Roskilde. Only 1542 was he elected to be bishop in Ribe. There he spent the remaining 20 years of his life, until he died from illness the 11th of November 1561.

Hans Tausen was called the Danish Luther. 10 years before the Reformation was officially adopted in Denmark, Tausen was one of the first, if not the first, to preach salvation by grace alone in Denmark. He was the first to preach in Danish, rather than Latin. He also stopped using his religious habit early on in his career. It's said that he was a better preacher than writer, but apparently his translation of the Pentateuch was a masterpiece. He taught Hebrew in the University of Copenhagen. He composed over 100 hymns, the first ever in Danish.

In addition to that, he was the first Danish priest to marry, which greatly annoyed his Catholic detractors. In fact, he married twice. His first wife, Dorothea Sadolin, to whom he was married in 1527, died ten years later in 1537. Later that year he married Anna Andersdatter. It's through their children that Hans Tausen and I are related.

Hans and Anna had Lisbeth Hansdatter Tausen in 1552. With her husband Anders Madsen Pars she had Hans Tausen in 1575. When he grew up he became a priest in Løssing, where he married a women whose name we don't know. They had the son Niels Hansen Tausen in 1605. Niels Hansen Tausen travelled to Støren in Norway where entered ministry. There he married Kirsten Nielsdatter Balg, and they had a son, Hans Nielsen Tausen, in 1631. Hans Nielsen Tausen married Birgithe Pedersdatter Schielderup. Together they had Nicolai Hansen Tausen in 1661. Nicolai Hansen Tausen was the first Tausen to travel to the Faroe Islands, where he worked as a surgeon and sheriff until he drowned in 1705. This happened after the captain of the boat he was travelling with didn't take his advice and steered to close to the shore, crashing the boat and killing all but one man, including, of course, Nicolai Hansen Tausen. Nicolai was Hans Tausen's great-great-great-great grandson.

Anne Malen Zachariassen, née Tausen

I won't bore you with the details, mostly because I can't be bothered to write them out, but fast forward through the generations until 1914 when my grandmother Anna Malena Tausen was born in Toftir. She married Jákup Zachariassen, they had Zacharias Zachariassen, who is my father. So there is a direct line, 500 years down through the ages, from myself to the original Danish reformer Hans Tausen.

The theological line, though, is not so direct. My grandparents, Anna Malena and Jákup, were among the first converts from Lutheranism to Plymouth Brethrenism in the Faroe Islands. My father was the first child not baptised in Gøta, where they lived all their lives. The opposition from the Lutheran establishment to the new Brethrenism was fierce and there exists still to this day some antipathy between the two factions, though it is present mostly with the older generations, who still remember just how fierce it was. This, you could say, mirrors the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in the middle of which Hans Tausen lived, preached and reformed, though there was considerably less blood. Though I am denominationally Brethren and would create a scandal akin to the one Tausen created if I became Lutheran, theologically I become more and more Lutheran every day. Though I stand outside the ecclesial structure of Lutheranism, I am deeply indebted to it's theological heritage. Therefore, I am deeply indebted to Hans Tausen, my forefather of both blood and faith.