Anton Gapp

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Pastor Anton Gapp

Anton Gapp , also Antoine Gapp (born January 1, 1766 in Oermingen , Alsace ; † March 27, 1833 in Forbach ) was a French Catholic priest of the diocese of Metz and the diocese of Mainz and founder of the order of the Sisters of Providence of Peltre ( Sœurs de la Providence de Saint-André de Peltre ).

Live and act

He came from Oermingen in Crooked Alsace and wanted to be a clergyman. Anton Gapp attended the school of the former Jesuit college in Bockenheim / Alsace (today Sarre-Union ), then the St. Simon seminary in Metz. As a result of the French Revolution , he fled his fatherland and was ordained a priest in Trier on September 24, 1791 . Gapp then went back to his homeland and worked here in his office at constant risk of death. He had to flee several times as a refuser , once even as far as Switzerland. After all, from 1794 he lived as a priest in Tyrol for three years before he could finally return to France. From 1797 he officiated in his place of birth, 1801 and 1802 he was pastor in Gosselming , 1802 to 1803 in Kalhausen . In 1803 he became pastor in Hottviller , where he stayed until 1808.

As a result of the revolution, an enormous religious ignorance had developed among the youth. Pastor Gapp was convinced that the young girls in particular, as educators for future generations, needed a well-founded religious education. Therefore, when he took office in Hottviller, he bought a modest house in order to found a girls' school. In 1805 he appointed two young women as teachers.

In the newly founded French Grand Diocese of Mainz, Bishop Joseph Ludwig Colmar tried to found an order of sisters for the education of young women, which exactly corresponded to Gapp's intentions. He was able to win this for the foundation of the order in Homburg , which was then part of the Mainz district. On November 19, 1806, the two teachers of the previous girls' school received a religious dress and made their vows. They were the first members of the new congregation founded in Homburg, the "Sisters of Divine Providence". The ruins of the Palais Salabert there, which were converted for this purpose, were bought as the motherhouse . From 1808 to 1811 Anton Gapp taught at the seminary in Metz, before taking up the post of pastor of Kirrberg in the diocese of Mainz in 1811 . So he was in the immediate vicinity of the new monastery.

In 1816, Homburg and Kirrberg fell politically to the Kingdom of Bavaria as part of the Rhine district . Bishop Colmar therefore turned to King Max I Joseph , a friend of his, to approve the statutes of the order , who approved them on February 25, 1818. Since the Bavarian government under Maximilian von Montgelas caused several difficulties for the development of the young order, after the death of Bishop Colmar († December 15, 1818), Pastor Gapp moved the motherhouse to Forbach in his home diocese of Metz at the end of 1821 . There the congregation established itself in the castle of the Counts von Strahlheim . Anton Gapp left the former Salabert Palace with 12 acres of land to the parish of Homburg, now part of the Speyer diocese, which was re-established in 1818 , for the purpose of building a new or enlarging the local church.

In 1821 Gapp took over the parish of Hombourg-Haut with Freyming near Forbach , which he looked after until the end of his life. At the same time he acted as superior of the order of sisters. He died in the mother house in Forbach in 1833 and was buried there. Today the Rue Abbé Antoine Gapp is named after him.

In 1839 the seat of the order was moved from Forbach to Peltre . When the Second World War broke out , the community numbered over 1,000 sisters. In 1956 the order celebrated its 150th anniversary and became a community of papal law. In 1990 the congregation still had 500 members. In Germany she is currently u. a. represented with several branches in the diocese of Trier .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Denis Quiring, Marcel Stein: Chronique de Cocheren , 1989, p. 171; (Detail scan)
  2. ↑ Denis Quiring, Marcel Stein: Chronique de Cocheren , 1989, p. 171; (Detail scan)
  3. ↑ Website on the Palais Salabert in Homburg
  4. ↑ Website on the history of Kirrberg, with a mention of Pastor Gapp ( memento from March 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Gapp, Anton
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gapp, Antoine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Catholic priest of the diocese of Metz
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1766
PLACE OF BIRTH Oermingen , Alsace
DATE OF DEATH March 27, 1833
Place of death Forbach