Hans Lassen Martensen

born August 19, 1808 in Flensburg, Duchy of Schleswig (now Germany); died February 3, 1884 in Copenhagen, Denmark) was a Danish theologian and academic, who in 1854 gave up his educational career and was made bishop of Seeland, the Danish Primate.

The "official" eulogy he pronounced upon Bishop Jakob P. Mynster (1775-1854) in 1854, in which he affirmed that the deceased man was one of the authentic truth-witnesses of Christianity to have appeared in the world since apostolic times brought down upon his head the invectives of the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (thus triggering the father of existentialism's attack on official Christendom).