50 Facts About Michael Servetus

Michael Servetus was a Spanish theologian, physician, cartographer, and Renaissance humanist.

Michael Servetus was the first European to correctly describe the function of pulmonary circulation, as discussed in Christianismi Restitutio.

Michael Servetus was a polymath versed in many sciences: mathematics, astronomy and meteorology, geography, human anatomy, medicine and pharmacology, as well as jurisprudence, translation, poetry, and the scholarly study of the Bible in its original languages.

Michael Servetus is renowned in the history of several of these fields, particularly medicine.

Michael Servetus participated in the Protestant Reformation, and later rejected the Trinity doctrine and mainstream Catholic Christology.

Some sources give an earlier date based on Michael Servetus' own occasional claim of having been born in 1509.

Michael Servetus's father was a notary of Christian ancestors from the lower nobility, who worked at the nearby Monastery of Santa Maria de Sigena.

But, it has been recently documented that Michael Servetus actually had two more brothers and at least three sisters.

Michael Servetus' family used a nickname, "Reves", according to an old tradition in rural Spain of using alternate names for families across generations.

Michael Servetus studied under High Master Gaspar Lax, and masters Exerich, Ansias, and Miranda.

Near 1527 Michael Servetus attended the University of Toulouse where he studied law.

In 1530 Michael Servetus joined the retinue of Emperor Charles V as page or secretary to the emperor's confessor, Juan de Quintana.

Michael Servetus travelled through Italy and Germany and attended Charles' coronation as Holy Roman Emperor in Bologna.

Michael Servetus was outraged by the pomp and luxury displayed by the Pope and his retinue, and so decided to follow the path of reformation.

Michael Servetus studied at the College de Calvi in Paris in 1533.

Michael Servetus dedicated his first edition of Ptolemy and his edition of the Bible to his patron Hugues de la Porte.

Michael Servetus wrote a pharmacological treatise in defence of Champier against Leonhart Fuchs In Leonardum Fucsium Apologia.

Michael Servetus predicted an occultation of Mars by the Moon, which along with his teaching, generated much envy among the medicine teachers.

Michael Servetus's teaching classes were suspended by the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Jean Tagault, and Servetus wrote his Apologetic Discourse of Michel de Villeneuve in Favour of Astrology and against a Certain Physician against him.

Tagault later argued for the death penalty in the judgment of the University of Paris against Michael Servetus, who was accused of teaching De Divinatione by Cicero.

Michael Servetus was in prison for several days because of this incident.

Michael Servetus became the personal physician to Pierre Palmier, Archbishop of Vienne and was the physician to Guy de Maugiron, the lieutenant governor of Dauphine.

Michael Servetus became a French citizen, using his "De Villeneuve" persona, by the Royal Process of French Naturalization, issued by Henri II of France.

In 1553 Michael Servetus published another religious work with further anti-trinitarian views entitled Christianismi Restitutio, a work that sharply rejected the idea of predestination as the idea that God condemned souls to Hell regardless of worth or merit.

God, insisted Michael Servetus, condemns no one who does not condemn himself through thought, word, or deed.

Michael Servetus had sent an early version of his book to Calvin.

Michael Servetus sent Calvin several more letters, to which Calvin took offense.

Michael Servetus has just sent me a long volume of his ravings.

Michael Servetus was arrested after the service and again imprisoned, and all his property was confiscated.

Michael Servetus claimed during this judgment he was arrested at an inn at Geneva.

French Inquisitors asked that Michael Servetus be extradited to them for execution.

At his trial, Michael Servetus was condemned on two counts for spreading and preaching Nontrinitarianism, specifically, Modalistic Monarchianism and anti-paedobaptism.

Calvin believed Michael Servetus deserved death because of what Calvin termed, "execrable blasphemies".

Michael Servetus impudently reviled me, just as if he regarded me as obnoxious to him.

The fact that Michael Servetus was dead meant that his writings could be distributed more widely, though others such as Giorgio Biandrata developed them in their own names.

The writings of Michael Servetus influenced the beginnings of the Unitarian movement in Poland and Transylvania.

Peter Gonesius's advocacy of Michael Servetus' views led to the separation of the Polish brethren from the Calvinist Reformed Church in Poland, and laid the foundations for the Socinian movement which fostered the early Unitarians in England like John Biddle.

Michael Servetus argued that it arose from teachings of Greek philosophers, and he advocated a return to the simplicity of the Gospels and the teachings of the early Church Fathers that he believed predated the development of Nicene trinitarianism.

Michael Servetus hoped that the dismissal of the trinitarian dogma would make Christianity more appealing to believers in Judaism and Islam, which had preserved the unity of God in their teachings.

Michael Servetus affirmed that the divine Logos, the manifestation of God and not a separate divine Person, was incarnated in a human being, Jesus, when God's spirit came into the womb of the Virgin Mary.

Michael Servetus asserted that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were dispositions of God, and not separate and distinct beings.

Under severe pressure from Catholics and Protestants alike, Michael Servetus clarified this explanation in his second book, Dialogues, to show the Logos coterminous with Christ.

Michael Servetus was nevertheless accused of heresy because of his insistence on denying the dogma of the Trinity and the distinctions between the three divine Persons in one God.

Sharply critical though he was of the orthodox formulation of the trinity, Michael Servetus is better described as a highly unorthodox trinitarian.

Widespread aversion to Michael Servetus's death has been taken as signaling the birth in Europe of the idea of religious tolerance, a principle now more important to modern Unitarian Universalists than antitrinitarianism.

Michael Servetus was the first European to describe the function of pulmonary circulation although his achievement was not widely recognized at the time, for a few reasons.

Michael Servetus's discovery was based on the colour of the blood, the size and location of the different ventricles, and the fact that the pulmonary vein was extremely large, which suggested that it performed intensive and transcendent exchange.

Michael Servetus contributed enormously to medicine with other published works specifically related to the field, such as his Complete Explanation of Syrups and his study on syphilis in his Apology against Leonhart Fuchs, among others.

In Geneva, 350 years after the execution, remembering Michael Servetus was still a controversial issue.

In 1903 a committee was formed by supporters of Michael Servetus to erect a monument in his honour.