Ferenc Berke

Berke's gravestone in Puconci

Ferenc Xaver Berke de Nagy-Barkócz (Slovene: Franc Berke Prekmurian: Ferenc Xaver Berke) (c. 1764 – February 10, 1841) was a Hungarian Slovene Lutheran pastor and writer.

Born in Sembiborci (Sebeborci), he was the son of János Berke (1734–1820) and Judita Novák (daughter of the nobleman Ferenc Novák). His parents were petty nobles or gentry. One of his ancestors, Ambrosius Berke, received the confirmation of his earlier nobility and privileges in 1609, after older documents had been lost in the war with Turks. Berke attended elementarz school in Nemescsó, and by 1778 was at the Lutheran lyceum in Pozsony. He then studied for three years at the University of Jena in Germany. He married twice, first to the noblewoman Elisabeth Posgay, widow of János Ringhoffer, and after her death to Ana Zsuzsanna Bachich, widow of the nobleman Péter Horváth, Lutheran pastor in Meszlen. Bachich´s father was István Bachich, the senior (superintendent) of the Lutheran congregation in Sopron. Neither of the two marriages produced children. Berke's younger brother József Berke (1772–1833) was pastor in Križevci, Croatia, in 1805–33.

After 1790, Berke was pastor in Križevci until October 14, 1805, when he became pastor in Puconci and later senior (superintendent) of the Evangelical congregation. Berke and Mátyás Godina published a second edition of the Prekmurian New Testament Nouvi Zákon of István Küzmics. In 1829, sanction to the György Czipott's prayer-book Dühovni áldov.

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Literature

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