Frederick III of the Palatinate
Elector Palatine from 1559 to 1576. He ordered a single catechism for the churches and schools of his territory and published it at Heidelberg in January 1563 with a preface in his own name.
Frederick ruled the Palatinate from 1559 to 1576 (Heidelberg Catechism introduction to the edition of the Christian Reformed Church). In the preface to the catechism he styles himself elector Palatine on the Rhine and says that he holds it the chief duty of his government to see the young trained in “the pure and consistent doctrine of the holy Gospel”. Finding no settled catechism in use, he had one prepared with the advice of the theological faculty at Heidelberg and of the leading ministers, and he commanded all pastors and schoolmasters to use it (Frederick III, Preface to the Heidelberg Catechism in Richards, pp. 183–199).
The addition of question 80, against the mass, to the second and third printings was made, according to the note in the third, by his command (Heidelberg Catechism question 80, Schaff’s note). See the Heidelberg Catechism.
In the timeline
- 19 January 1563, firm dateThe Heidelberg Catechism
In January 1563 the elector Frederick III issues a catechism for the churches and schools of the Palatinate. Its 129 questions, beginning with the believer’s ‘only comfort in life and in death’, become a confession of Reformed churches.