Priest, Author. He wrote "The Imitation of Christ", which became one of the most popular and best known Christian books on devotion. Born in Kempen in what is now the Rhineland, Germany, around the year 1380, he was sent to a school conducted by the Brethren of the Common Life at Deventer, became a skillful copyist. Admitted among the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine of Mount Saint Agnes near Zwolle, where his brother John had been before him, rising to the office of prior, Thomas received priestly orders in 1413 and was appointed sub-prior in 1429. Leading a quiet life, with his time spent between devotional exercises, composition and copying, he copied among others the Bible no less than four times, with one of the copies preserved at present at Darmstadt in five volumes. Authoring varies titles of devotional character, including tracts and meditations, letters and sermons, similar in content to "The Imitation of Christ", his works overflow with adoration for Christ. Passing away near Zwolle, legend has it that he was accidentally buried alive, for splinters were later found embedded under his fingernails, for which he was denied canonization. With a monument dedicated to his memory in the presence of the Archbishop of Utrecht, Monsignor Henricus van de Wetering, in Saint Michael's church in Zwolle on November 11, 1897, upon the closing of the edifice, his shrine was moved to a historical church in the centre of Zwolle in 2006.
Priest, Author. He wrote "The Imitation of Christ", which became one of the most popular and best known Christian books on devotion. Born in Kempen in what is now the Rhineland, Germany, around the year 1380, he was sent to a school conducted by the Brethren of the Common Life at Deventer, became a skillful copyist. Admitted among the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine of Mount Saint Agnes near Zwolle, where his brother John had been before him, rising to the office of prior, Thomas received priestly orders in 1413 and was appointed sub-prior in 1429. Leading a quiet life, with his time spent between devotional exercises, composition and copying, he copied among others the Bible no less than four times, with one of the copies preserved at present at Darmstadt in five volumes. Authoring varies titles of devotional character, including tracts and meditations, letters and sermons, similar in content to "The Imitation of Christ", his works overflow with adoration for Christ. Passing away near Zwolle, legend has it that he was accidentally buried alive, for splinters were later found embedded under his fingernails, for which he was denied canonization. With a monument dedicated to his memory in the presence of the Archbishop of Utrecht, Monsignor Henricus van de Wetering, in Saint Michael's church in Zwolle on November 11, 1897, upon the closing of the edifice, his shrine was moved to a historical church in the centre of Zwolle in 2006.
Bio by: Eman Bonnici
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