Albert Ehrhard

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Albert Ehrhard (around 1905)
Albert Ehrhard

Albert Maria Joseph Ehrhard (born March 14, 1862 in Herbitzheim (Bas-Rhin) , Lower Alsace , † September 23, 1940 in Bonn ) was a Catholic priest , church historian , patrologist and Byzantinist .

Life

Born the son of a teacher, Ehrhard attended the Strasbourg seminary from 1878 to 1883 . He then worked as a German teacher at a French college. He studied at universities in Strasbourg, Münster , Würzburg , Munich , Bonn, Tübingen and Rome . In 1885 he was ordained a priest. In 1888 he was promoted to Dr. theol. PhD . During his studies he became a member of the Unitas in Münster in 1885 . In 1894 he became an honorary member of the KDStV Markomannia Würzburg , in 1899 of the KÖStV Austria Wien and in 1900 an honorary member of the DKStV Nordgau Wien, which he helped found and which entered the CV in 1906 .

Ehrhard became professor of Christian art and philosophy at the Roman Catholic seminary in Strasbourg in 1889 . As successor to Cardinal Josef Hergenröthers , he went to the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg as professor of church history in 1892 . In 1898 he moved to the Catholic Theological Faculty of the University of Vienna , of which he was dean in 1899. In 1902 he succeeded Franz Xaver Kraus at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg .

Strasbourg

As early as the next year, 1903, he returned to his Alsatian homeland on the other side of the Rhine , to the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität Strasbourg . In 1911/12 he was its rector .

In 1905 Ehrhard appeared as a speaker at the 52nd General Assembly of German Catholics in Strasbourg (Deutscher Katholikentag). In the presence of the bishops Adolf Fritzen , Willibrord Benzler , Franz Zorn von Bulach and Wilhelm Stang (USA), he gave his much-noticed lecture on August 21, 1905: The importance of the papacy for religion and culture.

After the armistice of Compiègne (1918), like many German university professors expelled from the Third French Republic , Ehrhard returned to Germany. From 1920 to 1927 he taught church history at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn . He became chairman of a "Scientific Institute of the Alsace-Lorraine in the Reich", ELI, in Frankfurt am Main, affiliated with the university. He was its chairman until 1922, when Max Donnevert left the institute due to the increasing völkisch-nationalistic orientation . In 1929 he retired .

Ehrhard died in Bonn at the age of 78. His grave of honor is in the Poppelsdorf cemetery in Bonn.

Quarrel with Rome

During his time in Strasbourg, Rome withdrew his prelate title in 1908 because he publicly expressed concerns about the Syllabus Lamentabili published in 1907 as part of the modernism controversy . Ehrhard emphasized, however, that he was not a modernist, and after submitting a declaration of loyalty, censorship (church punishment in various degrees, such as suspension, etc.) was refrained from. Under the pontificate of Benedict XV. and Pius XI. Ehrhard was rehabilitated more and more. In 1922 he was reappointed a prelate. In addition to his teaching activities, he also published books again, mainly on the history of the early Church; they appeared in the church publishing house Bonner Buchgemeinde .

Ehrhard had made friends with the Austro-Hungarian apostolic field vicar , Bishop Coloman Belopotoczky , and dedicated his first better-known book, Catholicism and the Twentieth Century in the Light of Church Development in Modern Times, to him. Belopotoczky was one of the few loyal friends who stayed with him when he clashed with the Roman Curia.

In 1892 he published the Strasbourg theological study sheets with Eugen Möller , in 1900 with Johann Peter Kirsch the series Research on Christian Literature and Dogmatics , in 1902 with Franz Martin Schindler the Theological Studies of the Leo Society and since 1924 the Reformed Historical Studies and Texts .

Sources describe him as an excellent expert on patristic and dogma history .

Memberships and honors

plant

Dedicated to the Apostolic Field Vicar Coloman Belopotoczky

Ehrhard held the chairmanship of the Society for the Publication of the Corpus Catholicorum for a long time , a registered association that still exists today , which has set itself the task of collecting works by Catholic writers from the time of the religious schism in the 16th century in a way that meets the demands of science Way to publish under the title “Corpus Catholicorum” and to support or carry out the printing of such works, which are connected with the works published in the Corpus Catholicorum and with the Catholic Reform and Counter-Reformation or are suitable to shed light on the church history of that time.

Most of Ehrhard's immense scientific work over decades did not reach the public during his lifetime, and he himself said little about it. For his research in the field of Greek hagiographies, he used around 2,750 manuscripts. In the fall of 1897, Adolf von Harnack offered him to bring out the martyrs' files as part of the Greek Church Fathers Edition. However, Erhard knew very early on that this was an extremely extensive area and that not only Greek, but also Latin, possibly also Syrian and Armenian literature should be consulted. His concept included a complete review of the fundamentals that he wanted to do in four parts. Part 1 should include the tradition, part 2 the inventory, part 3 critical prolegomena and part 4 the texts. Only part 1 of the extremely extensive work appeared as a tradition and inventory of the hagiographic and homiletic literature of the Greek Church , of which four volumes were partially published posthumously in texts and studies on the history of early Christian literature . It offers a comprehensive overview of the entire handwritten library holdings on this topic and laid the foundation. There was no longer any copy of the texts.

Publications

  • Hermas fragments on papyrus . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen , Vol. 9 (1892), pp. 223–225 ( online ).
  • The old holdings of the Greek Patriarchal Library of Jerusalem . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen , Vol. 9 (1892), pp. 441–458 ( online ).
  • Early Christian literature and its research since 1880 . Freiburg 1894.
  • Karl Krumbacher with the participation of Albert Ehrhard and Heinrich Gelzer : History of Byzantine Literature from Justinian to the End of the Eastern Roman Empire (527-1453) , Munich 1897.
  • The early Christian literature and its research from 1884-1900 : The pre-Cänische literature. Freiburg 1900.
  • Catholicism and the Twentieth Century in the Light of Modern Ecclesiastical Development . Vienna 1901.
  • The Middle Ages and its ecclesiastical development . Mainz / Munich 1908.
  • Historical theology and its method . In: Festschrift for Sebastian Merkle . Düsseldorf 1922. 117-136.
  • The Church of the Martyrs . Your tasks and your achievements. Munich 1932.
  • Early Church and Early Catholicism , Borromäus-Verein e. V., Book Community Department, Bonn 1935.
  • Tradition and existence of the hagiographic and homiletic literature of the Greek Church ;
    • From the beginning to the end of the 16th century. - Part 1, The Tradition Vol. 1. In texts and studies on the history of early Christian literature, TU 50, 1937
    • Part 1, The Tradition Vol. 2, TU 51, 1938
    • Part 1, The Tradition Vol. 3.1, TU 52.1, 1943
    • Part 1, The Tradition Vol. 3,2, TU 52,2, 1952

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rector's speech (HKM)
  2. ↑ Members were Harry Bresslau , Michael Faulhaber , Paul Laband , Otto Wilhelm Madelung
  3. ↑ Winkelmann, TU 111, p. 4.
  4. ↑ TU 50, foreword p. XVII.

literature

  • Wilhelm Hengstenberg:  Ehrhard, Maria Joseph Albert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 357 ( digitized version ).
  • Negotiations of the 52nd General Assembly of Catholics in Germany, in Strasbourg , Verlag Herder, Strasbourg, 1905 (with the complete presentation: The importance of the papacy for religion and culture. )
  • Michaela Sohn-Kronthaler : Austria in the modernism dispute. The Causa Albert Ehrhard and the Austrian Bishops' Conference , in: Rainer Bucher et al. (Ed.): Looking back in anger? Creative potentials of the modernism dispute . Theology in Cultural Dialogue 17 (2009), pp. 131–153
  • Norbert Trippen : Albert Ehrhard - a "Reform Catholic" , in: Roman quarterly for Christian antiquity and church history (RQ) 71 (1976), p. 199; Reviews, p. 231
  • Letters from Michael Faulhaber to Albert Ehrhard “In the greatest veneration” - in: Würzburger Diözesangeschichtsblätter 66 (2004), 425–436
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz:  Albert Ehrhard. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 1, Bautz, Hamm 1975. 2nd, unchanged edition Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-013-1 , Sp. 1471-1472.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Friedhelm Winkelmann: Albert Ehrhard and the exploration of the Greek-Byzantine hagiography, presented on the basis of Ehrhard's correspondence with Adolf von Harnack, Carl Schmidt, Hans Lietzmann, Walther Eltester and Peter Heseler, Akademieverlag, Berlin 1971 (TU 111).
  • Ehrhard, Maria Joseph Albert , in: Friedhelm Golücke : Author's lexicon for student and university history. SH-Verlag, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-89498-130-X . Pp. 91-93.
  • Gregor Klapczynski: Catholic Historicism? On historical thinking in German-speaking church history around 1900. Heinrich Schrörs - Albert Ehrhard - Joseph Schnitzer (Munich Church History Studies NF 2) , Stuttgart 2013.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ehrhard, Albert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ehrhard, Maria Joseph Albert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Catholic theologian
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Herbitzheim
DATE OF DEATH September 23, 1940
Place of death Bonn