Nicolaus Copernicus

Poland
1473-1543

Copernicus was a canon of Frombork Cathedral, with a doctorate in canon law and a degree in medicine. The title “canon” is conferred by a bishop, only upon priests outstanding in doctrine and liturgy. Clearly, Copernicus was well-regarded as a priest. His maternal uncle, Lucas Watzenrode, Bishop of Warmia, financially supported his astronomical work for Copernicus’ entire life. For Father Copernicus, church business, especially economics and diplomacy, was his life; astronomy was his hobby. But his astronomical skill was well-known. In 1514, the Fifth Lateran Council sought his opinion in the problem of calendar reform. This gave him occasion to publish his first heliocentric theories. Indeed, the Gregorian calendar reform of 1586, the calendar the Catholic Church invented and the entire Western world uses today, was based on heliocentric theory. These theories were so elegant that in 1533 they were presented in Rome to Pope Clement VII and several cardinals. On 1 November 1536, Archbishop of Capua Nicholas Schönberg wrote Father Copernicus a letter in which he strongly encouraged him to continue to develop these new cosmological theories and offered to help pay printing costs.

But, though Bishop Giese also urged him forward, Copernicus held off on publication. He rightly feared secular university professors, who held fast to Ptolemaic astronomy, would attack him. He was correct. When his work was presented at the University of Wittenburg, the secular professors were so hostile, they permitted only the trigonometry chapter to be printed. In stark contrast to the hostile universities, Bishop Giese was so interested in publishing the work, he hired George Rheticus, a Protestant pupil of Copernicus and a man whose father had been beheaded for sorcery, to edit Copernicus’ manuscript. Wittenberg’s secular professors were outraged. They silenced Rheticus by forcing him to give up his chair in mathematics. As a result, Rheticus was forced to give up the editing project, which he handed over to Reverend Osiander, also a Protestant. Osiander, aware that Luther and Melancthon hated heliocentrism even more than university professors did, tried to convince Copernicus to write a preface which called the theory a mere hypothesis. Copernicus not only refused, he instead wrote a wonderful preface dedicating the work to Pope Paul III.

But, Copernicus was now very ill. He relied on Osiander to get the manuscript ready for printing. Osiander secretly replaced Copernicus’ preface with his own unsigned preface, falsely claiming the contents of Copernicus’ book were hypothetical, not to be taken seriously. Copernicus, who only saw a bound copy of the work as he lay dying from a stroke, didn’t realize what had been done. Other astronomers knew. Johannes Kepler demonstrated the preface was a forgery created by Osiander out of fear of Protestant and professorial reaction. The war against Copernican heliocentrism was begun by university professors and Protestants, not the Catholic Church. Yet, today university professors invoke the man they persecuted as their mascot.