Bernhard Kötting

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Bernhard Kötting (born March 29, 1910 in Hengeler, a district of Stadtlohn , Westphalia ; † May 20, 1996 in Münster ) was a Catholic church historian , patrologist , Christian archaeologist and rector of the University of Münster .

Life

Bernhard Kötting was born as the eldest of eleven children into a farming family in the Hengeler peasantry near Stadtlohn. Contrary to tradition and against the resistance of his father, he did not take over his parents' farm, but decided to study theology. When his first-born, who helped out on his parents' farm during the semester break, once drove the harvest wagon into the ditch, his father commented that it was a good thing that Bernhard was studying, because he was "too stupid to wiärn to Buer". After graduating from high school Paulinum in Münster in 1929 , he studied theology in Münster and Freiburg. In 1930 he became a member of the K.St.V. Flamberg . He was ordained a priest on December 22, 1934 in Münster. This was followed by service as a chaplain in Gelsenkirchen-Horst and Freckenhorst.

academic career

In Munster he had agreed with Johannes Quasten as the topic for a dissertation The Assessment of the Second Marriage in Pagan and Christian Antiquity . After Quasten went first to Rome, then (1938) to the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC , Kötting completed his dissertation under the direction of Quasten's teacher Franz Joseph Dölger in Bonn in 1940; He passed the Rigorosum after Dölger's death in the same year under the direction of Theodor Klauser . Due to the events of the war and post-war years, in which Kötting performed pastoral care as a chaplain at Merveldt Castle and after the war as a student pastor in Münster, the habilitation could only be completed on June 21, 1948 in Münster after he was released from academic work in the Heidelberg libraries Work pilgrimages in antiquity and the pilgrimage in the old church (printed with the upper title Peregrinatio religiosa in Münster 1950) take place.

One semester after completing his habilitation, he had the opportunity to continue studying Christian archeology in Rome, where he lived in Campo Santo Teutonico and heard at the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana and from where he went on study trips throughout the Mediterranean. Later, too, he tried to get to know the locations and traces of the ancient church history from his own experience.

On June 1, 1951, Kötting was appointed full professor for ancient church history , Christian archeology and patristics in Münster. In the academic year 1954/1955 he was dean of his faculty and since then a member of the Senate of the Münster University until his retirement in 1978. 1960/1961 and 1967/1968 he was rector of the university. In 1963 he took over the management of the independent Institute for Religious Folklore in Münster.

He was unusually successful as an academic teacher (his students include Ernst Dassmann , Theofried Baumeister , Karl Suso Frank , Winfrid Cramer , Anastasios Kallis and Maria-Barbara von Stritzky ). Since his appointment, he had made particular efforts to enable young theologians from the Orthodox churches to continue studying in Münster with scholarships, which in many cases led to doctorates and habilitation.

His colleagues honored him with two festschrifts: Pietas (Aschendorff, Münster 1980) and Philoxenia, Prof. Dr. Dedicated to Bernhard Kötting by his Greek students (ibid. 1980).

Kötting was a member of the Catholic student union Teutoburg Paderborn in the KV and became honorary philistine of the KV connections Tuiskonia-Monasteria and Hansea-Halle in Münster.

Participation in the promotion of science

In all of these functions, he set the course for the future.

Honors

Fonts

A list of writings up to 1979 can be found in: Pietas. Festschrift for Bernhard Kötting . The smaller writings are compiled in Bernhard Kötting: Ecclesia peregrinans. The people of God on the way. Collected essays .

Editorial activity

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Günther Mees: Bernhard Kötting. Too stupid to be a farmer . In: Ders: People with a profile. Pioneer for the present from the diocese of Münster . Butzon and Bercker, Kevelaer 1990. p. 95.
  2. ↑ Bernd Kötting: Josef Wirmer - A life in Christian responsibility. In: Wiegand Pabsch (ed.): Josef Wirmer . KStV. Flamberg, Bonn 1986, p. 11.
  3. ↑ News Service Münster (ndm), vol. 26, no. 9 of 26 February 1976, p. 4
  4. ^ Edited by Ernst Dassmann and Karl Suso Frank. Aschendorff, Münster 1980, pp. IX-XIII.
  5. ^ Edited by Maria-Barbara von Stritzky, 2 volumes, Aschendorff, Münster 1988, ISBN 3-402-03959-1 .

Web links

predecessor Office successor
Andreas Predöhl Rector of the University of Münster
1960–1961 		Hermann Goecke
Friedrich Klein Rector of the WWU Münster
1967–1968 		Heinz Rollhäuser
personal data
SURNAME Kötting, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German church historian, patrologist and Christian archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH City wages
DATE OF DEATH May 20, 1996
Place of death Muenster