Amandus John
Amandus John OSB (also Amand , born November 5, 1867 in Kreibitz , Bohemia as Josef John , † July 5, 1942 in Melk , Lower Austria ) was an Austrian Benedictine and politician . From 1909 until his death he was the 63rd abbot of Melk Abbey and from 1912 to 1915 a member of the large estates in the Lower Austrian state parliament .
Life
Josef John was born in 1867 in the north Bohemian village of Kreibitz (today Chřibská, Ústecký kraj , Czech Republic ). In 1887 he entered the Benedictine monastery of Melk Abbey, where he was ordained a priest in 1892 . From 1892 to 1909 he worked as a pastor in various parishes overseen by the monastery. In 1909, after the death of Abbot Alexander Karl , he was elected as its successor by the convent of the monastery. During his reign he modernized the monastery (construction of a drinking and utility water pipe, a sewer system, an electricity plant and the economic building), restored (Fahrndorf, Weikendorf , Rohrendorf , Albersdorf and Matzersdorf ) and built ( Grillenberg ) parish churches throughout Lower Austria and rationalized the im Farms owned by the monastery. In 1914/15 he founded a juvenate (boys' seminar), which was continued until after the Second World War, primarily to enable boys of rural origin to receive appropriate training (at the Melker Stiftsgymnasium ) and to be able to accept them later in the order. The Kartause Gaming and its possessions were also acquired in 1915 under Abbot John.
The extremely difficult financial circumstances of the post-war and inter-war period - caused by inflation, the ineffectiveness of the town's apartment buildings and the loss of property in Marghita - forced him to take drastic measures. For example, in the 1920s, an original copy of the Gutenberg Bible had to be sold to finance a water pipe. It is now in the Beincke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University in New Haven , Connecticut . He was a member of the Lower Austrian state parliament from September 16, 1912 to January 8, 1915, where he represented large estates. He was also (even after 1918) a member of the Lower Austrian provincial culture council. Abbot Amandus John died in Melk in 1942, and was succeeded by Maurus Höfenmayer.
The Abt-Amand-John-Strasse in Melk was named after him on February 24, 1958.
Web links
- John, Amand (Josef) (1867–1942), religious. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 3, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1965, p. 124.
- Biographical data of Amandus John in the Biographical Handbook of the Lower Austrian Parliament 1861–1921
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Alexander Karl |
Abbot of Melk Monastery 1909–1942 |
Maurus Höfenmayer |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | John, Amandus |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | John, Josef; John, Amand |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian chaplain, abbot and politician, member of the state parliament |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 5, 1867 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kreibitz , Bohemia , Austria-Hungary |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 5, 1942 |
| Place of death | Melk , Lower Austria |