Introduction

Biography

A pas­tor, Jo­hann was the son of a mas­ter bak­er from Frank­furt, and hus­band of Ka­tha­ri­na Reuss.

After at­tend­ing gram­mar school in his home town, from 1702 he stu­died the­ol­og­y at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Gieß­en with Jo­hann Hein­rich May the El­der and Jo­hann Ernst Ger­hard.

Starck com­plet­ed his stu­dies in November 1706, then became a pri­vate tu­tor in Frank­furt am Main.

In 1709, he was ap­point­ed as a dea­con to the Ger­man Pro­test­ant com­mu­ni­ty in Ge­ne­va, where he stayed un­til 1711.

After a short stu­dy trip to Paris in 1712, he re­turned to Frank­furt as a pri­vate tu­tor with the fa­mi­ly of ci­ty school­mas­ter Jo­hann Christoph von Och­sen­stein.

From 1715–23 he was pas­tor at the Drei­kön­igs­kirche in Sach­sen­haus­en, and from 1723 at the Bar­füß­er­kirche on Pauls­platz, the main Pro­test­ant church in the ci­ty (church closed in 1782, and was de­mol­ished in 1786).

On Oc­to­ber 23, 1742 he was ap­point­ed co­nsis­tor­i­al pre­si­dent and Sun­day preach­er at the Hos­pi­tal­kirche zum Heil­ig­en Geist.

Works

He wrote some 939 hymns, and pub­lished a po­pu­lar book of dai­ly de­vo­tions.