Bishop von Blumenthal was born at Horst, administratively now part of
Heiligengrabe. He came from the Prignitz landed gentry and was a member of the
von Blumenthal noble family in
Brandenburg. His father Hans von Blumenthal († 1524) owned the Horst manor and villages of Vehlow, Blumenthal, Brüsenhagen, and a share of Rosenwinkel. Blumenthal is mentioned as early as 1507 as secretary to Bishop
Dietrich von Bülow. In 1513, as cathedral dean of Lebus, he also became rector of the
Brandenburg University in Frankfurt and later received his
Dr. iur. utr. PhD. In 1520, he received a position as canon at
Ratzeburg Cathedral. In the same year, he was elected
Bishop of Havelberg and also confirmed by the
Pope, but could not accept the election because of the objection of the Elector of Brandenburg. From 1521 he was (with an interruption from 1526 to 1529) as the holder of a
Great Prebendary also canon in Lübeck. In 1524, he became
Bishop of Lebus and shortly afterwards
Bishop of Ratzeburg as successor to
Heinrich Bergmeier – against the bitter resistance of Duke
Magnus I of Lauenburg. He stayed mostly in the Diocese of Lebus and was represented in Ratzeburg by the cathedral provost. In 1528, he became involved in a feud with aristocrats from the Brandenburg region and narrowly escaped an attack on the episcopal palace in
Fürstenwalde. In 1529, however, he came to Ratzeburg and had the reformist-minded preacher
Thomas Aderpul imprisoned, which led to a feud with the nobles of the
Klützer Winkel and to a lengthy
Imperial Chamber Court process, which only ended in 1540 with a verdict in favor of the bishop. In 1530, he accompanied Elector
Joachim I to the
Augsburg Diet. Here he obtained an
imperial ban against Duke Magnus I for the robbery of church property and in 1536 he also won an imperial chamber trial against him. To finance the processes, the bishop and the Ratzeburg cathedral chapter had to sell the cathedral treasure from 1530 onwards. He negotiated the second marriage of
Joachim II,
Elector of Brandenburg, to the Catholic
Hedwig of Poland. Known in his lifetime as the "Pillar of Catholicism", he used his position as Chancellor of the Viadrina to combat the
Reformation. He acquired the respect of his opponents, including the Margrave
Joachim II himself, for his principled stand against reforms which he believed to be wrong and opposed by every legal means possible. For this, Luther said he should be "generally hated"., from a photo taken in the 1880s. Georg escaped through one of the windows However, some of his opponents were not so respectful. He was twice besieged in his palaces by
Protestant brigands; once at
Fürstenwalde by the robber-baron Nickel
von Minkwitz, an event which drew
Martin Luther into the controversy, and once at
Ratzeburg. At Fürstenwalde the Bishop escaped through a window in disguise, while his brother Matthias held the place. As Prince-Bishop of Ratzeburg he was the last
Catholic sovereign ruler in
northern Germany, and as Bishop of Lebus, the only Bishop in Brandenburg during the
Protestant Reformation to die a Catholic. He died in
Lebus and was buried in
St Mary's Cathedral, Fürstenwalde upon Spree. == External links ==