Andreas Amrhein

Andreas Amrhein

Andreas Amrhein , born as Josef Georg Amrhein (born February 4, 1844 in Gunzwil , † December 29, 1927 in Sankt Ottilien ) was a Swiss clergyman, Benedictine monk of the Beuron Archabbey and founder of the monastery of Sankt Ottilien .

Life

Josef Amrhein was born the son of a farmer. He attended school in Beromünster , then in Lucerne . Before he finished high school, he fell very seriously ill in 1862. He had to drop out of school and went to Florence, where he trained as a painter. From 1865 he continued his apprenticeship as an artist in Paris; Study visits to Neuchâtel and Lucerne followed. The sermons of the Swiss Jesuit Peter Roh at a popular mission and two religious experiences led Josef Amrhein to deal more and more with religious questions and topics. In the fall of 1868 he started studying theology at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen .

In 1870 he entered the Beuron monastery and thus the order of the Benedictines. In doing so he took the religious name Andreas. His idea of ​​combining Benedictine life and missionary work could not be realized in the Beuron Congregation. After it was first founded in Reichenbach in 1884 , the community was relocated to Emming in 1887. In the same year he was able to send a first group of monks to Africa as missionaries. It was important to him that the mission was not limited to preaching the gospel , but rather worked into everyday life. That is why the contribution of the lay brothers as craftsmen, farmers, teachers, doctors, etc. was essential for him.

The monastery was named after the pilgrimage site Sankt Ottilien (the place name Emming was given up in 1904). The cloister area of ​​the monastery was built in the neo-Gothic style after plans by Amrhein from 1892. Amrhein was the first General Superior to head the Benedictine Congregation of St. Ottilien until 1895.

Amrhein was a member of the Catholic student association AV Guestfalia Tübingen in the Cartell Association of Catholic German student associations .

Writings and artistic work

• The founder. Fonts . EOS-Verlag, Sankt Ottilien 2006, ISBN 3-8306-7239-X .
• The founder. Letters . EOS-Verlag, Sankt Ottilien 2010, ISBN 978-3-8306-7420-7 .
  • Vol. 1: Letters from 1866–1889.
  • Vol. 2: Letters from 1890–1927.
• The founder. Art and technology . EOS-Verlag, Sankt Ottilien 2012, ISBN 978-3-8306-7559-4 .

literature

• Ivo Auf der Maur: Amrhein, Andreas. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Suso Brecht OSB: Amrhein, Andreas . In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 260 ( digitized version ).
• Johannes Schaber:  AMRHEIN, Andreas OSB. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 14, Bautz, Herzberg 1998, ISBN 3-88309-073-5 , Sp. 702-707.
• Hans-Michael Körner (Ed.): Large Bavarian Biographical Encyclopedia . tape 1 : AG . Saur, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-598-11460-5 , pp. 45 ( digitized version [accessed January 25, 2014]).
• Peter Rohrbacher: German mission initiatives at Campo Santo Teutonico. The Mission Benedictines in German East Africa and the Nordic Missions . In: Stefan Heid , Karl-Joseph Hummel (ed.): Papality & Patriotism. The Campo Santo Teutonico: place of the Germans in Rome between Risorgimento and First World War (1870-1918) . Herder, Freiburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-451-38130-0 , pp. 613–643.

Web links

• Publications by and about Andreas Amrhein in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
• Literature by and about Andreas Amrhein in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Mary Bellarmine Bernas: Our founder: P. Andreas Amrhein OSB .
2. ↑ Cyrill Schäfer: Monastic Reform and Mission . In: Erbe und Einsatz , Vol. 92 (2016), pp. 315–324, p. 317.