Arnold Frank (theologian)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arnold Frank (born March 6, 1859 in Suja / Austria-Hungary ; † March 20, 1965 in Belfast ) was a Protestant theologian of Hungarian origin who was pastor of the Jerusalem congregation in the Jewish mission and diakonia in Hamburg from 1884 to 1938 .

life and work

Arnold Frank was born in Suja, a place south of Rajec (then Austria-Hungary , now Slovakia ), to Jewish Orthodox parents. At the age of 17 he came to Germany; Frank worked in Hamburg as an employee of the private bank Rothschild & Baruch. In Hamburg he came into contact with Christian members of the Jerusalem community. Frank converted to Christianity and was baptized on June 24, 1877 by John Campbell Aston, pastor of the Jerusalem Church. Frank attended - encouraged by his pastor - a grammar school in Hamburg and from 1879 studied theology at the College of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in Belfast . In January 1884 he took British citizenship. He met his future wife Ella-Louisa Kingham at friends of the Aston family in Belfast. In the same year he was ordained and called to serve as a missionary at the Jerusalem Church in Hamburg.

The focus of Frank's work in Hamburg was on mission to the Jews as well as charitable work on Jews, especially on Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe on their way overseas, often fleeing pogroms in Tsarist Russia. Pastor Arnold Frank founded a mission house for emigrating Jewish men on Eimsbütteler Strasse (today Budapester Strasse). From 1899 Frank published the magazine Zions Freund , which temporarily had a circulation of 40,000 copies and was also sent to the Jewish settlement areas of Eastern Europe.

In 1910 the University of Belfast awarded Arnold Frank an honorary doctorate in theology.

Under Frank's leadership, the Jerusalem congregation created a new center for congregational work, at that time still outside the city center. For this purpose, the Jerusalem community acquired urban building land on the corner of Schäferkampsallee and Moorkamp in Eimsbüttel. In 1912 the new Jerusalem Church was consecrated. After the completion of the church, the construction of a deaconess house and the Jerusalem hospital began .

In 1933 Arnold Frank was able to place the deaconess and hospital under a Swiss foundation. In August 1938 the Gestapo arrested Arnold Frank and his pastor colleague Ernst Moser, despite his British citizenship. After nine days and British intervention, both were fired. In the same year Arnold Frank left Germany and went to Northern Ireland. In 1939 the Jerusalem community was banned. After the war, Frank returned to Hamburg three times and supported the construction of the Jerusalem children's home in Bad Bevensen . In 1953 he was able to take part in the service for the rededication of the Jerusalem Church, which was destroyed in the war.

On March 30, 1963, Frank was awarded the First Class Cross of Merit by the Federal President . Shortly after Arnold Frank celebrated his 106th birthday in 1965, he fell ill and died after a brief illness in Belfast.

In Taughmonagh , a suburb of Belfast, a newly built church was named after him in 2007: The Rev Arnold Frank Memorial Presbyterian Church . The new building was financed from the testamentary legacy of Anna Harpur and Ella Louise Frank, which provided for this dedication.

literature

  • Dr. Arnold Frank . In: New Zion's Friend , 1965, ZDB 1461472-8. (Obituary, translation by Ruth Hanson into English online )
  • Robert Allen: Arnold Frank of Hamburg . J. Clarke, London 1966.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harald Jenner: Jerusalem work in the 19th and 20th centuries . In: Inge Mager (Hrsg.): Hamburg Church History in Essays , Part 4 (The 19th Century). (Works on the church history of Hamburg, Volume 27). Hamburg University Press, Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-943423-02-0 , p. 457.
  2. ↑ Harald Jenner: Jerusalem work in the 19th and 20th centuries . In: Inge Mager (Ed.): Hamburg Church History in Essays , Part 4. Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-943423-02-0 , p. 466.
  3. ^ Opening of new Church building in Taughmonagh on Lisburn Church News of September 10, 2007.
  4. ↑ Annual Reports 2008, General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Property Committee , Belfast 2008, p. 150.
personal data
SURNAME Frank, Arnold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British theologian of Hungarian origin in the mission to the Jews
DATE OF BIRTH March 6, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Hungary
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1965
Place of death Belfast