MEET A HERETIC: Michael Servetus (1511 - 1553)
As a youth he had been a zealous Catholic. But he began studying the Bible and the writings of the Reformers, and this reading transformed him into an opponent of the papacy. His thoughts began to circle incessantly around the figure of Christ, whom he hailed as his sole master. He enjoined Christians to forget the Christ of dogma and return to the Christ of the Bible.
Protestantism, Servetus held, had committed the serious error of accepting dogmas that had formed during the first three centuries of Christianity in that organization which developed at Rome.
John Calvin (Reformer) had written to Guillaume Farel (a great orator of the Reformation, who first converted Geneva to protestantism): "If he [Servetus] comes here [to Geneva] I will not let him depart alive."
Seven years later Servetus made the mistake of attending a sermon by Calvin. In church he was recognized, and there were officers ready to arrest him immediately after the services. He was made to stand trial. As an obstinate "heretic" he had all his property confiscated. It became a matter of prestige for Calvin to assert his power in this case; he was forced to push the condemnation of Servetus with all the means at his command. He wrote to Farel during the trial: "I hope that the verdict will call for the death penalty."
On the morning of October 27, 1553 a silent procession led Servetus to the stake. When the executioner began his work, Servetus whispered with trembling voice: "Oh God, Oh God!" Farel, who walked alongside him, taunting him, snapped at him: "Have you nothing else to say?" Servetus replied to him: "What else might I do, but speak of God!" Thereupon he was lifted onto the pyre and chained to the stake. A wreath strewn with sulfur was placed on his head. When the faggots were ignited, a piercing cry of horror broke from him. "Mercy, mercy!" he cried. For more than half an hour the horrible agony continued, for the pyre had been made of half-green wood, which burned slowly. "Jesus, Son of the eternal God, have mercy on me," the tormented man cried from the midst of the flames.
excerpted from The Heretics by Walter Nigg