BUCHINGER, MICHAEL. - German theologian and preacher, b. at Colmar in 1520 and d. there in 1571. After studying at Heidelberg and obtaining the baccalaureate at Freiburg in Breisgau in 1539, from 1542 to 1569 he exercised his ministry in various localities in Germany: thus he was at Molsheim, at Strasbourg, in 1564 he was parish priest at Wolxheim, whence he passed to Schlettstadt and finally to Colmar, where in 1569 we find him as preacher. In defense of papal authority, he sketched a history of the Church, vindicating its apostolicity in the uninterrupted succession of pontiffs from St. Peter to Paul IV. Without excessive critical pretensions, with the fervor of the orator rather than the precision of the critic, one might say that he aimed more to make an impression on the heart than to bend the reason. Not differently in his preaching works he admirably alternates the warmth of the orator with the coolness of the apologist.
He wrote: *De imaginibus, ieiunio, Eucharistia* (s.l. 1543); *De mysterio altaris* (Cologne 1555); *Ecclesia* (s.l. 1556); first published under the title *Historia ecclesiastica nova* (Magdeburg 1560); in German, *Sermons on the Decalogue, Gospels of Sundays and Feasts of the Saints* (3 vols., s.l. 1567-70); *De Missae sacrificio* (Antwerp 1588).