Balthasar Estermann

Balthasar Estermann (born March 2, 1827 in Traselingen, Hildisrieden community ; † July 3, 1868 in Lucerne ) was a Roman Catholic secular priest and founder of a religious community of women from which the Melchtal Monastery emerged.

After attending grammar school in Schwyz , he entered the Jesuit order in Brig and Isenheim ( Alsace ) in 1847 and began studying philosophy in Namur ( Belgium ). In 1852 he left the order and switched to studying theology in Freiburg im Breisgau and Tübingen . In 1855 he was ordained a priest and worked from 1857 to 1860 as a vicar in Hildisrieden and in 1865 was pastor of the penal house in Lucerne.

In 1858 he founded the Katholische Schweizer-Blätter for science and art and in 1860 in Lucerne a student convict, an institution for unemployed maids (the Marienheim ) and a religious association for unmarried women. In 1866 he bought a house in Melchtal in order to found a monastery of Perpetual Adoration together with three women from this association, but died two years later. After that, Father Berchtold Fluri from Engelberg Monastery took over the care of the women and gave them the Rule of Benedict - this is how Melchtal Monastery came into being, in which around 50 sisters still live today.

Web links

• Lukas Schenker: Estermann, Balthasar. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .