Melchior Khlesl (Klesl,Klesel,Cleselius) (19 February 1552 – 18 September 1630) was an Austrian statesman and cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church during the time of the Counter-Reformation. He was minister-favourite of King and Emperor Matthias (1609 – 1618) and a leading peace-advocate (between the different confessional leagues of the empire) in the period before the Thirty Years War. Klesl was appointed Bishop of Vienna in 1602 and elevated to cardinal in December 1615. Biography Born in Vienna to Lutheran Protestant parents, with his father being a baker, Melchior Klesl studied philosophy at the University of Vienna, and converted impressed by the preaching of Jesuits. He entered the faculty of Philosophy at University of Vienna in 1570. In 1574 he joined the “Papal Alumnat”, a boarding school for prospective priests run by the Jesuits in Vienna. At this time the Emperor Rudolf II became aware of him as promising candidate for the priesthood. He wanted to use him for his plans for a campaign against his protestant noble estates and towns as well as for a church reform in Lower Austria. In 1579 Khlesl, now doctor of philosophy, was given the post of cathedral provost of St. Stephan in Vienna and he received his ordination to the priesthood. The emperor and his advisors put the prince-bishop of Passau, Urban of Trenbach, under pressure to make Khlesl his official representative in Vienna to carry out a reform of the Catholic clergy. Trenbach, appointed Khlesl as his official representative for Lower Austria in 1580 and in 1581 as his vicar-general in Vienna. His task was to discipline the dissolute and lax catholic clergy. As cathedral provost and chancellor of the university, Khlesl worked on behalf of the emperor to make adherence to the roman-catholic confession a duty for professors and students. As an official he was also given the task by Rudolf II to bring back the protestant towns in Lower Austria to the faith of the emperor. This campaign, the “Religionsreformation”, had its high point in the years 1585 to 1588. Khlesl’s moderate measures during his campaign to re-catholicize Lower Austria became the source of some tension with Jesuits like the hard-liner Father Georg Scherer, S.J., that soon led to an open contention. To calm things down, Khlesl claimed that Scherer was the one who convinced him to convert and that they both had the same goal. In 1588 the emperor appointed