Augustine Gerlstötter

Augustinus Gerlstötter OSB (* 1610 or 1614 in Deggendorf ; † March 4, 1658 in Aldersbach ), was a monk and abbot in the Bavarian Benedictine abbey of Metten .

biography

Augustinus Gerlstötter entered the Benedictine monastery in Metten in 1634. After the scientific training that he received in Passau and in the home study of the monastery, and after the solemn profession, he was ordained priest in 1639. He then held the offices of novice master and prior in the Metten monastery .

When the Metten abbot Maurus Lauter was convicted of unknown accusations and offenses by the episcopal ordinariate in Regensburg and had to resign, the prior Augustinus Gerlstötter was appointed as administrators of the monastery together with the chef Alban Guetknecht. In the abbot election on March 8, 1651, Augustinus Gerlstötter was elected as the new abbot by ten of the twelve monks entitled to vote in the monastery (the monastery had a total of 17 conventuals, 1 lay brother and 1 novice).

Although Abbot Augustinus Gerlstötter was considered a pious and conscientious man, his tenure for the Metten monastery turned out to be less than happy. A protracted and costly legal battle over possessions of the monastery in Austria, despite its happy outcome, contributed to the increase in the monastery's debts, which had accumulated in necessary new buildings and the Thirty Years War . Nevertheless, Abbot Augustinus Gerlstötter was committed to the high school and the University of the Benedictines in Salzburg.

The term of office of Abbot Augustinus Gerlstötter was overshadowed primarily by the disputes over the establishment of a congregation of the Bavarian Benedictine monasteries ( Bavarian Benedictine Congregation ). The abbot of Metten, Johannes Nablas , once expressly supported this plan, which had been pending since 1628 and which was supposed to implement the guidelines of the Council of Trent. However, the implementation of this plan was stalled by the turmoil of the war and resistance from the Bavarian bishops. When the congregation was finally about to be realized, Abbot Augustinus Gerlstötter wanted nothing to do with such a union of Bavarian Benedictine monasteries. He refused to join his monastery on the grounds that a congregation contradicted the Benedictine Rule and that Metten did not have the necessary financial means to contribute anything to such a congregation. While the Bavarian Benedictine abbots still trying Kloster Metten move to join the Congregation, Abbot died Augustine Gerlstötter suddenly and unexpectedly, when he for blessing the new abbot of the Cistercian monastery Gotteszell in the Abbey Aldersbach bored. Abbot Augustine was buried in Aldersbach; his epitaph is preserved in the monastery church there.

literature

• Wilhelm Fink , History of the Development of the Benedictine Abbey of Metten. Part 1: The Book of Professions of the Abbey (Studies and Communications on the History of the Benedictine Order and its Branches, Supplement 1/1), Munich 1926.
• Maurus Gandershofer , The merits of the Benedictines von Metten for the care of the sciences and the arts , Landshut 1841, p. 15.
• Winfrid Hahn, The Foundation of the Bavarian Benedictine Congregation . In: Studies and communications on the history of the Benedictine order and its branches 95,3–4 (1984), pp. 299–488
• Michael Kaufmann, "Has had a hard and difficult government in all of them". The Metten abbot Augustinus I Gerlstötter died 350 years ago in Aldersbach . In: Alt und Jung Metten 75.1 (2008), pp. 45–50.
• Rupert Mittermüller , The Metten Monastery and its Aebte: An overview of the history of this old Benedictine monastery , Straubing 1856, pp. 171–176.

predecessor	Office	successor
Maurus Lauter	Abbot of Metten Monastery 1651–1658	Johann Jakob Schleich