RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Heil Heldring
representative of the archbishop Albert, and on the death of that prelate in the same year he acted as incumbent of the see till the election of a successor. The emperor, who considered him useful for the execution of his ecclesiastical policy in Germany, in the summer of 1547 summoned him to Ulm. Helding appeared at the Augsburg diet, where he was honored with the commission of preaching in the cathedral during the sessions of the diet. In 1548 he published at Ingolstadt his fifteen sermons on the mass which have been counted as among the most notable contributions of the sixteenth century to the subject. They gave rise to a lively controversy in which Helding found himself assailed by Flacius, who demolished his arguments for the early character of the sacrament. Helding made no attempt to defend the untenable position he had assumed. In 1548 he returned to Mainz and devoted himself to the task of introducing the Interim in the Nassau region, and to his duties in connection with the higher administration of the Church. From him emanated the great catechism of Mainz, the Institutio ad pietatem Christianam (1549), also a compendium intended for the use of the pages at the court of Mainz. The books were assailed by Wigand and by Flacius, and Helding may have been right in discerning that one of the causes of the virulence to which he was subjected was his nomination by the- emperor to the chapter at Merseburg as a candidate for the vacant see. The chapter was in difficulty between the imperial candidate and the candidate proposed by Maurice of Saxony, Julius Pflug. In spite of Maurice's utmost endeavor, Helding, in May, 1549, was chosen bishop by a reluctant chapter. The papal confirmation was not obtained till April of the following year; meanwhile the affairs of the see were conducted by Prince George of Anhalt; on surrendering the office to Helding in December the prince exacted the promise that he would attempt no change in the established doctrine, enter on no reforms without the consent of the entire chapter, and follow a policy of conciliation toward the married priests. Prince George remained in Merseburg to watch over the fortunes of the church under its new bishop, and when the latter, after the first period of caution was over, seemed about to enter on a process looking to the reestablishment of the old authority, Maurice intervened and compelled him to abstain from all open attack on the Reformed faith. Helding attempted by friendly means to win over the clergy; he installed Catholic priests in his cathedral, introduced Catholic ceremonial, and from the cathedral pulpit preached indirectly against the Protestant " sect." The break between Maurice and the emperor and the sudden change in public affairs that followed convinced him of the hopelessness of attempting to restore the Catholic faith in his town. He could not prevent his clergy from applying for ordination to the consistory of Leipsic, and one of them assumed virtual control of the diocese. He nevertheless managed to confer many benefits upon the see by his wise administration and charitable labors. In 1555 he was present at the Diet of Augsburg, and two years later he played a most important part at the Conference of Worms, where, with Pflug and
Canisius, he headed the Catholic deputation. He brought confusion into the ranks of the Protestants by demanding from them a statement of their position as to the doctrine of Calvin and Zwingli regarding the Lord's Supper, that of Osiander concerning justification, and that of Flacius regarding the freedom of the will and good works. The last point gave rise to the violent controversy between the Jena theologians and the Philippists, and led to the secession of the party of Flacius and the failure of the conference, a result which delighted the Catholics. In 1558 Helding was made president of the Imperial Chamber at Speyer, and three years later he became head of the Aulic Council at Vienna. In the same year he addressed with Pflug a memorial to the emperor, recommending the concession of communion in both kinds and the marriage of priests. Helding occupies a leading place among Roman Catholic pulpit orators of the sixteenth century. While holding fast to the Catholic position, he was exceedingly adept in expressing his opinions in words that often proved acceptable to the Protestants. In his sermons at Merseburg he shows respect for the authority of the Scriptures and a general conception of the nature of the priestly office and of the relations between priest and layman that reveal the acute and experienced apologist speaking to an audience whose sympathies were Evangelical. (G. Kawerau.)
Bibliography: There is a biography by M. Winter in Mittheilungen des Vereins fiXr Geschichte und Alterthumskunde in Hohenzollern, xv (1881-82), 1-15; cf. N. Paulus, in Katholik, 11 (1894), 410 sqq., 481 sqq.
HELDRING, OTTO GERHARDT: Founder of the Inner Mission in the Netherlands; b. at Zevenaar (8. m. s.e. of Arnhem), Gelderland, May 17, 1804; d. at Marienbad (38 m. n.w. of Pilsen), Bohemia, July 11, 1876. In his university studies he displayed a decided preference for history and political economy over theology, but accepted, nevertheless, in 1826, a call to the pastorate of Hemmen, a little village of 150 inhabitants. There his bent for practical sociology was not slow in manifesting itself. The life of the peasantry attracted him; the causes and problems of poverty, with its effect on the physical and moral being of the community, were made the subjects of careful investigations, the results of which he published with the object of arousing a general interest that might lead to the initiation of remedies. The first of his works, " Nature and Man," appeared in 1833, and was followed by a succession of writings published independently or in the form of contributions to periodicals, revealing a charming union of religion, poetry, history, economics, and homely wisdom, expressed in a simple style suitable for the wide audience to which he appealed. With the year 1841 begins the essential activity of his beneficent career. A journey undertaken in that year brought him by chance to the little village of Hoenderloo, whose inhabitants lived in a state of material and spiritual privation that aroused his pity. Through his exertions Hoenderloo was supplied with a well and a school; a church was established soon after, and within a few years Heldring had the satisfaction of witnessing the regeneration of a community. He devoted him-
Helena Heliodorus