Bernhard Rosa

Abbot Bernhard Rosa

Bernhard Rosa SOCist (Latinized: Bernardus Rosa ; * June 24, 1624 in Glogau ; † November 1, 1696 in Grüssau ) was abbot of the Cistercian Abbey of Grüssau and an important reformer of his order.

Origin and education

Bernhard Rosa was born as Johann Christoph Rose . His father, Johann Peter Rose, was a notary in Glogau, where numerous family members belonged to the clergy but also worked as mayors, councilors, merchants and lawyers.

Bernhard attended the Glogau Latin School, but had to flee from the Swedes to Poland in the Thirty Years' War in 1639. He also had to interrupt the subsequent rhetoric studies in Breslau due to the war. After further training in Brno , he studied philosophy at the University of Cologne , where he obtained the academic degree of a master's degree in 1646. Then he decided on the clergy. He did not plan to study theology in Rome because he fell ill on the trip there and gave up the project. He continued his studies in Munich and then returned to Silesia, where he became an alumnus of the seminary in Neisse . There the future Prince-Bishop of Breslau, Sebastian von Rostock, was one of his teachers.

Prior of Heinrichau

After meeting the Heinrichau abbot Georg Welzel, who was living in exile in Neisse, Rosa decided in 1649 to join the Heinrichau monastery . As a novice he took the first name Bernhard . Under Abbot Melchior Welzel he was appointed prior and novice master in 1653 . In this office he made great contributions to the reorganization of pastoral care in the localities belonging to the monastery and to the reconstruction of the monastery, which was completely devastated by the war. In the dispute between the Silesian Cistercians and the Breslau prince-bishop over the ecclesiastical exemption , he was able to hold several mediation talks as his abbot's envoy. As the abbot's secretary, he also took part in the monastery visions and thus gained insights into the individual Cistercian convents.

Abbot of Grüssau

In 1660 the Grüssau monks elected Bernhard Rosa as their new abbot. This monastery, too, suffered major damage to the monastery properties and buildings during the Thirty Years' War. Bernhard reformed the convent and the administration of the goods. With the improvement of agricultural methods and the promotion of weaving in the Stiftsland as well as raising the education of the subjects, the monastery-owned domains were able to generate higher yields and thus create the basis for the upcoming reconstruction of the monastery and church. The guilds of growers and knitters in the Stiftsland also flourished. The linen markets in the towns of Schömberg and Liebau were promoted by the abbot's protective laws.

Soon after his election Bernhard Pink confidant of was religious Generals . Abbot General Jean Petit of the Cîteaux monastery appointed him vicarius generalis and visitor for Silesia in 1673 . In 1674 he became extraordinary visitor and arbitrator of the convents in the Kingdom of Poland . He regularly visited the monasteries under his control and held annual provincial chapters, overseeing the implementation of the resolutions. Gifted monks who were sent to the Catholic universities of Vienna and Graz for doctoral studies rose to higher positions after their return. They also worked in other monasteries as professors and novice masters. In the upcoming abbot elections, Bernhard Rosa often succeeded in getting monks through his school. So z. B. Heinrich Kahlert , the most important abbot of Heinrichau. Finally, in 1677 Bernhard Rosa was able to settle the exemption dispute, which lasted over a hundred years, with the Breslau prince-bishop Friedrich von Hessen-Darmstadt in favor of the order. In the same year he issued new parish statutes ( Statuta parachorum ) for practical pastoral care . At the diets of the principalities of Schweidnitz and Jauer he worked as leader of the Catholic estates. He successfully campaigned for tax breaks for his subjects with the emperor.

Bernhard Rosa was one of the pioneers of Silesian baroque art. In Grüssau he founded a masons' colony and a sculptor's workshop for church art, where he employed well-known artists and which lasted until secularization . During his tenure, more than twenty ecclesiastical buildings were created in the Stiftsland, among them as important as the parish church of Schömberg and the Josephskirche in Grüssau. The latter has the greatest work by this artist, Michael Willmann's fresco cycle . He also created the drafts for the 32 pictures on the Passion story for the Grüssau Passion Book published by Abbot Rosa in 1682 , which was printed by Andreas Frantz Pega at Glatzer Verlag .

During the Reformation , the number of Grüssau monks at the end of the 16th century decreased so much that regular pastoral care in the villages belonging to the monastery was no longer possible. During the Thirty Years' War, the subjects of different faiths were suspected of sympathy with the Swedes, who plundered the monastery three times. They were also charged with the murder of Abbot Martin Clavaei (1620) and an assassination attempt on Abbot Adam Wolfgang (1626). As a result, there was a tense atmosphere between them and the monastery. In the course of the Counter Reformation , Bernhard Rosa took decisive action against those of different faiths and without consideration. He received spiritual support from his friend Angelus Silesius . Although the abbot tried to return the subjects to the old faith with popular sermons and other religious offers, in the end he gave them the choice of either becoming Catholic or emigrating. About eight hundred people then left the Stiftsland. The vacant positions were filled with Catholic weavers from the County of Glatz , from the Braunauer Land and from other East Bohemian areas. After the estates sued the abbot for his religious zeal with Emperor Leopold I , he justified himself several times, referring to the economic prosperity of his collegiate country.

In spite of this, Bernhard Rosa also rendered services to his subjects. In addition to his harshness in religious terms, he was also benevolent. In the parishes he set up a regular poor relief organization. He built three hospitals and personally visited the sick. At the monastery high school he founded, fifty free places were given to the sons of poor subjects. Gifted convent students were sent to Prague to study at the monastery costs. Many of them worked as doctors and lawyers in the monastery land after their return. The teachers of the monastery country, trained in their own courses, also contributed significantly to raising the education of the subjects.

In 1669, Bernhard Rosa founded the Grüssau Joseph Brotherhood, whose members were expected to do works of practical charity, among other things. With it a renewal and deepening of the faith should be achieved. At his death it had more than 40,000 members.

literature

• Nikolaus von Lutterotti : Bernhard Rosa . In: Schlesische Lebensbilder. Volume 3, Breslau 1928, pp. 89-95
• Ambrosius Rose: Abbot Bernardus Rosa von Grüssau . Stuttgart 1960

Web links

• Literature by and about Bernhard Rosa in the catalog of the German National Library