George Elector of Brandenburg-anspacb

George Elector Of Brandenburg-Anspacb, one of the first German princes who embraced the doctrines of the Reformation, and who was therefore surnamed the Confessor, or the Pious, was born at Onolzbach March 4, 1484. In 1515 he became, conjointly with his brother Casimir, regent of the province, in consequence of the infirmities of his father, Frederick. Both his father and his brother having died, he assumed the government in his own name in 1527. In 1524 he had become acquainted with Luther, and adopted his views. In 1529 he accompanied the reformer to the Diet of Spires, where he signed, on the 19th of April, the celebrated protestation against the "Majority Decision" of the German princes. The next year he went to the Diet of Augsburg, where he indorsed the Evangelical Confession on the 25th of June, on which occasion he boldly said to the emperor that "he could rather lose his head than renounce his religious convictions." Following out the plans of ecclesiastical reform of his brother Casimir, he framed in 1533 the Church organization of Brandenburg-Nuremberg, as also the liturgy which accompanied it, and which has been recently revived. He died at Onolzbach December 17, 1543. See Pauli, Allgens. Preuss. Staatsgesch. 3:457, 476; Buchholz, Gesch. d. Kurmark Brandenburg, 3:217, 296, 305; Mosheim, Ch. Hist. 3:42; Herzog, Real-Encykl. 5:28.