BRENZ, JOHANNES

born June 24, 1499, Weil, Wrttemberg died Sept. 11, 1570, Stuttgart German Protestant, principal leader of the Reformation in Wrttemberg. He studied at Heidelberg and was ordained priest in 1520; by 1523 he had ceased to celebrate mass and had begun to speak in favour of the Reformation. Brenz supported the views of Martin Luther; in Syngramma Suevicum (1525) he expounded Luther's doctrine of Real Presence in the Eucharist.