Benedictine Congregation of St. Ottilien

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The Benedictine Congregation of St. Ottilien or Ottilian Congregation is a Benedictine Congregation located in the Archabbey of Sankt Ottilien in the district of Landsberg am Lech near the Ammersee in the Bavarian Alpine Foreland.

The connection between the Benedictine way of life and commitment to missions and, today, also commitment to the young churches, especially in Africa , Asia and Latin America, is characteristic of the Congregation . The Congregation has the title (Patronage) of the Sacred Heart of Jesus . Parallel to the men's congregation, there is also a women's community, the Mission Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing .

History of the Congregation

Mission museum in Sankt Ottilien

In 1884 , the Benedictine Father Andreas Amrhein from Beuron founded a mission house with a male and a female branch in Reichenbach in the Upper Palatinate , with the intention of creating monastic communities based on the missionary efforts of the Benedictine monasteries of the Middle Ages. This development was favored by the fact that the imperial laws, which were directed against the establishment of orders due to the culture war , were weakened, since the government of the empire wanted to enable the training of missionaries due to the colonial expansion in Africa.

On November 27, 1886, Amrhein acquired the Emming estate in the municipality of Eresing near Landsberg am Lech . The newly formed community moved its headquarters there and in the following years also bought up the remaining properties in the small hamlet. In 1896 a male and a female monastery was officially founded. Its name Sankt Ottilien was derived from the Ottilien Chapel in Emmingen, which has been a destination for pilgrimages since the Middle Ages. The women's monastery moved to Tutzing on Lake Starnberg in 1904 .

Missionaries were sent to what was then German East Africa as early as 1887 . The community grew rapidly and was soon able to set up subsidiary branches in Bavaria , primarily to train young people. In 1901 a branch was established in St. Ludwig am Main , which in 1913 repopulated the former Benedictine abbey of Münsterschwarzach , and in 1904 a further branch in Schweiklberg in Lower Bavaria , each connected to a monastery school. The mission field also expanded: as early as 1909 , a new company was founded in Seoul .

In 1902 Sankt Ottilien was elevated to an abbey, two years later the hamlet of Emming was renamed St. Ottilien. In 1914, the Benedictine Congregation of St. Ottilien was established under canonical law, which was headed by the Archabbot of St. Ottilien until 2012, and since then by an elected Abbot President.

After the East Africa mission had already suffered from uprisings several times, the First World War plunged the work of the Mission Benedictines into a deep crisis: apart from personnel losses, the work of the German missionaries had become impossible in the Tanganyika area, which was now under British rule ; a certain continuation was only possible through Swiss confreres. So they turned to new tasks, especially in East Asia and South Africa ( Zululand ), and at the same time began to expand the base beyond Germany, first in Uznach (Switzerland), then also in Venezuela and the USA .

In East Asia, the congregation was assigned a larger mission area in North Chosen and Manchuria (or later Manchukuo ) in 1920 , so that instead of Seoul Abbey, two new abbeys were founded in Tokwon (near Wonsan , Chōsen) and Yenki ( Republic of China ) . The communists' seizure of power after the Second World War brought the violent end of these monasteries; especially in Korea some monks were murdered or deported to concentration camps, where more of them perished. As a result, however, a Korean abbey was founded in Waegwan ( South Korea ).

In Germany in 1928, at the request of the city of Meschede , the Königsmünster Abbey was opened there. During the Nazi regime , the congregation in Germany was subjected to a variety of reprisals, until 1941 all monasteries were abolished. Some were converted into hospitals .

After the war and the re-establishment of the German monasteries, it was necessary to adjust to the independence efforts of the African peoples . For this purpose, local offspring were increasingly trained, who were then able to take on leadership functions in the mission areas. In the decades since then, the international character of the congregation has increased more and more: Many monks now come from the indigenous population; At the same time, the locations and countries have expanded further.

Benedictine Missionary Monasteries

In 2010 the congregation included 23 independent monasteries (mostly abbeys ) as well as other dependent branches. The main monastery of the congregation is the Archabbey of St. Ottilien ; The Archabbot of St. Ottilien was also Abbot President of the Congregation until 2012 . Dependent houses are highlighted in blue; their list is incomplete.

Surname place Patronage Convention (monks / novices)
as of March 17, 2015 		founded country continent
Archabbey of St. Ottilien St. Ottilien Heart of jesus 109/2 1887 GermanyGermany Germany Europe
Münsterschwarzach Abbey Münsterschwarzach St. Felicitas 113 / - (788) 1913 GermanyGermany Germany Europe
Schweiklberg Abbey Vilshofen on the Danube Holy Trinity 30 / - 1904 GermanyGermany Germany Europe
Königsmünster Abbey Meschede Christ the King 48/3 1928 GermanyGermany Germany Europe
Jakobsberg Priory (to St. Ottilien) Ockenheim Holy Helper 1960 GermanyGermany Germany Europe
Damme Priory (to Münsterschwarzach) Dams St. Benedict 1963 GermanyGermany Germany Europe
Cella St. Benedikt (at Königsmünster) Hanover St. Benedict 1988 GermanyGermany Germany Europe
St. Georgenberg-Fiecht Abbey Fears St. George 9 / - around 950/1967 AustriaAustria Austria Europe
St. Otmarsberg Abbey Uznach St. Otmar 18 / - 1919 SwitzerlandSwitzerland Switzerland Europe
Monasterio Benedictino Nra. Sra. de Sopetrán (to Güigüe) Sopetrán St. Mary SpainSpain Spain Europe
St. Benedict's Abbey Peramiho Peramiho St. Benedict 55/4 1888 TanzaniaTanzania Tanzania Africa
Benedictine Abbey Ndanda Ndanda Holy Mary, Help of Christians 72/5 1906 TanzaniaTanzania Tanzania Africa
Benedictine Abbey Hanga Songea St. Maurus 121/22 1958 TanzaniaTanzania Tanzania Africa
St. Raphael's Priory Uwemba (to Peramiho) Uwemba St. Raphael 1931 TanzaniaTanzania Tanzania Africa
Benedictine Abbey Mvimwa Sumbawanga Holy Spirit 59/11 1997 TanzaniaTanzania Tanzania Africa
Kurasini (to Ndanda) Dar es Salaam St. Maurus 1894 TanzaniaTanzania Tanzania Africa
Benedictine Priory Kipalapala (to Hanga) Tabora St. John Evangelist 1974 TanzaniaTanzania Tanzania Africa
Benedictine Priory Tigoni Tigoni Christ King of Peace 23/5 1978 KenyaKenya Kenya Africa
Benedictine Abbey Inkamana Vryheid Heart of jesus 36/3 1922 South AfricaSouth Africa South Africa Africa
Christ the King's Priory Tororo Christ the King 18/4 1984 UgandaUganda Uganda Africa
Benedictine Monastery Katibunga (to Hanga) Katibunga St. Therese of Lisieux 14/3 1987 ZambiaZambia Zambia Africa
Monastère de l'Incarnation d'Agbang Agbang Incarnation of christ 26/3 1988 TogoTogo Togo Africa
Waegwan Abbey Waegwan St. Maurus and St. Placidus 144/4 1952 Korea SouthSouth Korea South Korea Asia
St. Benedict's Priory Digos Digos St. Benedict 16/5 1983 PhilippinesPhilippines Philippines Asia
St. Michael's Benedictine Hermitage Kumily Kumily St. Michael 12 / - 1987 IndiaIndia India Asia
Yenki Abbey Yenki 5/0 2001 China People's RepublicPeople's Republic of China People's Republic of China Asia
Cella ULF (to Uznach) Osornoe 2006 KazakhstanKazakhstan Kazakhstan Asia
Abadía Benedictina de San José Güigüe Valencia St. Joseph of Avila 8/2 1923 VenezuelaVenezuela Venezuela South America
El Rosal Monastery Santafé de Bogotá St. Benedict 7/1 1961 ColombiaColombia Colombia South America
Christ the King Priory (to Münsterschwarzach) Schuyler (Nebraska) Christ the King 10 1935 United StatesUnited States United States North America
St. Paul's Abbey Newton St. Paul 4th 1924 United StatesUnited States United States North America
Dependent priory of Havana Havana 4 / - 2008 CubaCuba Cuba America
total 922/74

Superior General and Archabbots as Head of the Congregation

Abbot President as head of the Congregation (elected by the General Chapter)

From the beginning until 2012, the Archabbot of St. Ottilien was always the “born” leader of the Congregation ( praeses natus ; so-called Archabbot System). Since 2012 the congregation has been led by an elected abbot president . The previous Archabbot was elected as the first President of the Congregation.

literature

  • P. Frumentius Renner (Ed.): The five-armed candlestick . Contributions to the development and work of the Benedictine Congregation of St. Ottilien. 4 volumes. Eos-Verlag , St. Ottilien 1979–1993.
  • P. Frumentius Renner: St. Ottilien. His becoming and working. = Mini chandelier. 4th expanded edition. Eos-Verlag, St. Ottilien 1985, ISBN 3-88096-015-1 .
  • Notker Wolf: St. Ottilien . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 9 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2000, Sp. 38 .
  • Peter Rohrbacher: German mission initiatives at Campo Santo Teutonico. The Missionary Benedictines in German East Africa and the Nordic Missions, in: Stefan Heid , Karl-Joseph Hummel (ed.): Papalism and Patriotism. The Campo Santo Teutonico: Place of the Germans in Rome between Risorgimento and the First World War (1870–1918) (= Roman quarterly for Christian antiquity and church history . Supplement vol. 65). Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) et al. 2018, ISBN 978-3-451-38130-0 , pp. 613–643.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Gerhard Heininger: 100 years of St. Ottilien monastery fire brigade . St. Ottilien 2007, p. 8th f . ( erzabtei.de [PDF; 1.8 MB ; accessed on January 21, 2014]). PDF document; 1.8 MB ( memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Mission sheets of the Benedictine missionaries from Uznach, September-October 2010 edition