Athanasius Zuber

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Bishop Athanasius Zuber
Stained glass window in Linz Cathedral: Athanasius Zuber center left, as a bearded bishop with miter, right in front of him, with staff, diocesan bishop Franz Joseph Rudigier

Athanasius Zuber OFMCap (born January 2, 1824 in Vienna , † May 14, 1872 in Gmunden , Upper Austria ) was a Capuchin , missionary in India, titular bishop and apostolic vicar of Patna .

Live and act

He was born the son of a Viennese businessman, attended the Schottengymnasium and then the city's university . In 1843 the young man joined the Capuchin order and was ordained a priest in Nitra (Neutra) in what is now Slovakia in 1848 . Afterwards he worked in Pressburg and Linz as a pastor.

At his own request, Father Zuber was sent to the overseas mission of his order. In 1850 he went to Rome and in January 1851 he left for Bombay . There he met his friar Anastasius Hartmann , at that time Apostolic Vicar of Patna and Bombay. Hartmann sent Zuber to Patna, where he arrived on July 16 of that year. The Austrian worked here in the Patna Vicariate for the next nine years. At first he worked mainly in Benares , where he built up the first Catholic community with great effort.

On March 8, 1854, Athanasius Zuber succeeded Anastasius Hartmann as Apostolic Vicar of Patna, at the same time he was titular bishop of Augustopolis in Phrygia . He received his episcopal ordination on July 9th of that year.

Zuber took care of the very poor district with great zeal and in 1856 went on a trip to Europe to collect donations. He promoted his cause in Austria, Germany, Italy and France and was also able to win over a group of sisters from the Congregatio Jesu (English Misses) for his diocese. No sooner had the bishop returned to India than the uprising of 1857 , in the course of which Bishop Zuber and the Christians of his vicariate were exposed to persecution and great dangers. Josephine Lorenz, the superior of the English Misses who had just been recruited by the bishop in Munich for his diocese, died with another sister in the church of Danapur , where a memorial is now to them. The Vicar Apostolic suffered from a tropical liver disease and the doctors urgently advised him to return to Europe. Nevertheless, he held out at his post until the destruction of the uprising was undone and the mission was consolidated again. It was not until 1860 that Zuber asked for release from his office in Rome, which Pope Pius IX gave him . with express recognition of his excellent services. His predecessor Anastasius Hartmann was again his successor as Vicar Apostolic of Patna.

On March 15, 1860, the Austrian shepherd left his diocese and arrived in Europe in May of that year. In Vienna he visited his elderly mother and went from there to the Capuchin monastery in Linz, from where he continued to help out in pastoral care and in the exercise of episcopal functions (e.g. confirmations and ordinations). In 1871 Zuber, already mostly confined to bed, moved to the Capuchin monastery in Gmunden and died there in 1872, at the early age of 48. He found his final resting place in the local cemetery.

There is a stained glass window from the 19th century in Linz's Mariä-Konstanz-Dom , which shows the laying of the foundation stone on May 1st, 1862 and on which the present bishops Franz Joseph Rudigier , Ignaz Feigerle and Athanasius Zuber are depicted.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Website of the English lady with a report on a pilgrimage to the memorial in Danapur, 2012
  2. ↑ Illustrated website on the former Capuchin monastery in Linz, where Bishop Zuber lived for 10 years as an emeritus ( Memento from March 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ The message of the old cathedral windows ( Memento from July 30, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
personal data
SURNAME Zuber, Athanasius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Capuchin, Apostolic Vicar of Patna
DATE OF BIRTH January 2, 1824
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1872
Place of death Gmunden