Ce travail replace la vie et la pensée d’un maître de conférences de l’université de Leipzig dans le contexte de son temps. Il retrace le parcours d’un orphelin pauvre, né à Eisleben comme son héros Martin Luther. Bénéficiaire de nombreux soutiens, il devint un lettré dont l’ambition fut une carrière universitaire, mais qui devint finalement pasteur de la principale des paroisses luthériennes germanophones de Londres, sans pour autant perdre de vue sa Saxe natale, ni l’ensemble du continent. Piétiste convaincu qu’il fallait lire Luther sous cet éclairage, Burckhardt vit dans Wesley et sa religion du cœur la continuation de ce qu’eut souhaité le Réformateur. Notre travail s’appuie sur un corpus documentaire rassemblant la totalité de ce qui sortit de sa plume, et analyse ces sources en relation avec les réactions qu’elles suscitèrent dans son entourage. En un temps marqué par la violence guerrière, notamment la Révolution française et les diverses remises en cause du passé, Burckhardt apparaît comme exemplaire du sort et des combats intérieurs des innombrables ecclésiastiques de son temps, obligés de se positionner au risque d’entrer dans des polémiques. Habité par le désir de voir la chrétienté se réveiller, il devint une passerelle entre le réveil anglo- saxon et celui du continent européen. L’œuvre de celui qui était aussi historien à ses heures permet de redécouvrir la fin d’un siècle tel qu’il le percevait. / Placing the life and thought of a former teacher at the university of Leipzig in the context of his time, this study develops the career of a poor orphan, born in Eisleben like his hero Martin Luther. Having been socially helped in various ways, he became a scholar whose ambition was to make a professional career at his Saxon university. His way brought him finally to London, where he became the pastor of the main of the local German-speaking Lutheran parishes. Keeping in touch with the continent, Burckhardt read Luther in the light of his Pietism and made the acquaintance of Wesley. He saw in his pietistic religion of the heart the continuation in Great-Britain of what he wished for his Lutheranism. Our study explores his writings as well as the numerous reactions to which they lead in the environment of the author and in the press. In his time marked by many wars between the nations, and by a deep questioning of the past, Burckhardt appears to have been exemplary for the lot of the most of his colleagues, obliged to take position at the risk to be involved in polemics. Wishing to see a renewed Christianity, he accepted the official role of being a link between the British revival and that of the European continent. The writings of the Historian that he has been occasionally carry the image of how Burckhardt saw the end of his century.