Wednesday, June 02, 2010

MICHAEL SERVETUS

I think Michael Servetus' life is interesting. Has his life been portrayed in films?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Servetus

"Michael Servetus (also Miguel Servet or Miguel Serveto; 29 September 1511 – 27 October 1553) was a Spanish (Aragonese) theologian, physician, cartographer, and humanist. He was the first European to describe the function ofpulmonary circulation. His interests included many sciences: mathematics, astronomy and meteorology, geography, human anatomy, medicine and pharmacology, as well as jurisprudence, and the scholarly study of the Bible in its original languages. He is renowned in the history of several of these fields, particularly medicine and theology. He participated in the Protestant Reformation, and later developed a nontrinitarian Christology. Condemned by Catholics and Protestants alike, he was arrested in Geneva and burnt at the stake as a heretic by order of the Protestant Geneva governing council.

Lately, Michael Servetus has also been credited with being one of the modern forerunners of freedom of religion and freedom of conscience in the Western world. A renowned Spanish scholar on Servetus' work, Ángel Alcalá, identified the radical search for truth and the right for freedom of conscience as Servetus' main legacies, rather than his theology. The Polish-American scholar, Marian Hillar, has studied the evolution of freedom of conscience, from Servetus and the Polish Socinians, to John Locke and to Thomas Jefferson and the American Declaration of Independence. According to Hillar, «Historically speaking, Servetus died so that freedom of conscience could become a civil right in modern society»."

I knew about Michael Servetus from Nicole Brenez's article:
http://www.rouge.com.au/9/percussion.html

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