Andreas Wenzel (Abbot)

Coat of arms of Abbot Andreas Wenzel

Andreas Wenzel OSB (born March 4, 1759 in Vienna ; † November 17, 1831 there ; actually Joseph Wenzel ) was an Austrian Benedictine and abbot of the Vienna Schottenstift .

Life

Wenzel, the son of a common soldier, lived after the early death of his father as a half-orphan in the invalids' house of the Viennese large poor house and attended schools of the Piarists and the Jesuits . In 1776 he entered the Scottish Abbey . He completed a degree in theology and was ordained a priest in 1783 . From 1786 he was initially a cooperator in the newly established parish of Schottenfeld . During this time, because of his sermons in which he took up ideas of the Catholic Enlightenment , he repeatedly came into conflict with the church authorities. From 1798 he was curate in the monastery, in 1806 he became pastor in Ortisei . In 1801 he was admitted to the Philosophical Doctoral College of the University of Vienna as a doctor of liberal arts and philosophy .

After Benno Pointner's death , Wenzel was elected abbot of the Schottenstift in 1807 . In the same year he opened the Schottengymnasium , which Emperor Franz I had ordered to be built. But also beyond that, Wenzel campaigned for science and education as a representative of a Josephinian state church. At the University of Vienna he was temporarily procurator of the Saxon and the Austrian nation, then 1807/1808 dean of the Philosophical Faculty. From 1809 he was Vice Director, from 1814 Director of Theological Studies and President of the Catholic Theological Faculty , as which he also received an honorary theological doctorate in 1814 . In 1809/1810 and 1818/1819 he was the rector of the university. Also in 1814 he was appointed real Lower Austrian government councilor and in 1819 real court councilor.

Towards the end of his reign, Wenzel also acted as a builder: From 1826 he had the Schottenhöfe, the extensive building complex around the monastery, redesigned by Joseph Kornhäusel and the already dilapidated convent building torn down and rebuilt. However, he did not live to see the completion in 1832.

literature

• Scriptores Ordinis S. Benedicti, qui 1750-1880 forunt in Imperio Austriaco-Hungarico . Vienna 1881, p. 508 f.
• Constantin von Wurzbach : Wenzel, Andreas . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 55th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1887, pp. 10–13 ( digitized version ).
• Georg Zeman: Abbot Andreas Wenzel, or: the Josephine invention of the Vienna Schottenstift . Univ. Diploma thesis, Salzburg 2012.
• Maximilian Alexander Trofaier:  Wenzel Andreas (Joseph). In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 16, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1957–2013, p. 125 f. (Direct links on p. 125 , p. 126 ).