Stories of Christian Martyrs: Michael Sattler

Michael Sattler was born in 1495 and became a monk. Like
many Reformation-era monks, he wrestled with his sensual
passions and his love for God. Sattler broke his oath of celibacy for an equally unavailable woman named Margarita, a nun who
also broke her oath for marital love. Later, the Sattlers would die for a
far greater love: their bond with God.

By 1526, the Sattlers had returned to the Anabaptist movement,
which Michael had been forced to renounce years earlier to avoid imprisonment. Now, with his Anabaptist convictions strengthened, Michael dedicated his life to preaching at a church in Horb, a strongly Catholic region of Austria. On February 4, 1527, in the small German town of Schleitheim, the Anabaptists met and introduced to the world a new way of understanding church and Gospel. The Sattlers traveled to Germany
from Horb for the deliberations that produced the “Seven Articles of the
Faith,” also known as the “Brotherly Union.” Michael Sattler helped
write this founding document of the Anabaptist movement.

But traveling home from that meeting, Michael and Margarita Sattler were captured and their articles confiscated. They were transformed
from Anabaptist advocates to Anabaptist martyrs—a twist of events that
propelled the church further than Sattler could ever have imagined.
Tried before a judge on May 17, 1527, the Sattlers, nine other men,
and eight women were charged with various violations of doctrine and
practice. Particularly grievous were the charges against the Eucharist,
baptism, unction, and the veneration of the saints.

“Michael Sattler shall be committed to the hangman,” read the
court’s sentence, “who shall take him to the square and there first cut
out his tongue, then chain him to a wagon, tear his body twice with hot
tongs there and five times more before the gate, then burn his body to
powder as an archheretic.”

Amid cries of “Almighty eternal God, Thou are the way and the
truth,” the sentence was carried out on May 21, 1527. Eight days later,
Margarita met the same fate, burned in the city of Rottenburg near the
Black Forest.

Finding completion in the love of wife and Lord, Sattler had set
himself to making the Anabaptist movement a light of truth for all
nations. Soon after their deaths, Anabaptists began carrying the “Brotherly Union” and an account of the Sattlers’ deaths in miniature version
on their persons, and no threat of torture could stop them. Something
deeper than the fear of fire and mutilation burned in their souls. And
this can be said about the soul of Michael and Margarita Sattler: for love
they lived, and for Love they died.

“Remember the word that
I said to you: ‘A servant is not
greater than his master.’
If they persecuted me, they
will also persecute you.
If they kept my word, they will
also keep yours.”
John 15:20

This story is an excerpt from Foxe: Voices of the Martyrs. You can get your own copy free with any donation to The Voice of the Martyrs.