Boniface Sauer

Mons. Boniface Sauer

Boniface Sauer OSB (* 10. January 1877 as Joseph Sauer in Oberufhausen ; † 7. February 1950 in Pyongyang ) was a German Missionary Benedictines , founder of the German Benedictine mission in Korea , Titular Bishop of Appiaria , Apostolic Vicar of the Apostolic Vicariate Kanko and Abbot-Bishop of Exemten Abbey Tokwon . He died a martyr for the Roman Catholic Church in a North Korean prison . On May 10, 2007, his beatification was initiated for him along with 35 other murdered clerics , nuns and friars .

Life

Sauer was born in Oberrufhausen in 1877 with the baptismal name Joseph as the son of the farmer Johann Nikolaus Sauer and his wife Franziska Sauer in simple circumstances. Despite his talent, after a serious illness in his father, he had to leave the Royal Cathedral Gymnasium in Fulda with the secondary school leaving certificate. In 1899 he joined the Benedictine Congregation of St. Ottilien . On February 4, 1900, he took the religious vows and took the religious name Boniface . In the same year he is listed as a philosophy student in the documents of the Royal Bavarian Lyceum Dillingen . After that it no longer appears in the annual report. On June 26, 1903, he was ordained a priest in Dillingen an der Donau . Following this, he was appointed head of the Benedictine study house there, the Bonifatius College. In 1906 the Benedictine Mission in Dillingen was elevated to a priory and Sauer became its first prior .

In 1908 the French Vicar Apostolic of Korea, Gustave-Charles-Marie Mutel MEP , traveled to St. Ottilien to win missionaries for Korea. Archabbot Norbert Weber selected Sauer, among others, and on January 11, 1909 he was sent to Korea. At the end of February 1909, Sauer traveled to Korea with his brother Dominikus Enshoff and built a new monastery on the northeastern edge of the city of Seoul , which was opened on December 6, 1909. A week later, on December 13th, the new monastery of St. Benedict was elevated to a conventual priory and Sauer became the first prior. Just three years after its foundation, the monastery was elevated to an abbey and Sauer became its first abbot on May 15, 1913 elected. On July 8, 1913, he was in his home monastery of St. Ottilien by Bishop Maximilian von Lingg benediziert . In addition to a teacher training college, the Seoul Monastery also included a trade school . On August 25, 1920 Abbot Boniface was appointed by Pope Benedict XV. the Apostolic Vicar of Wonsan and titular bishop of Appiaria appointed and finally on May 1, 1921 by Bishop Mutel in Seoul Myeongdong Cathedral bishop ordained . In 1927 he moved the abbey to the north of Korea to Tokwon near the port city of Wonsan. On January 12, 1940, he was elected Abbot of Tokwon and appointed Vicar of the Apostolic Vicariate of Kanko by Pope Pius XII.

On the night of May 9th to 10th, 1949, the Tokwon Monastery was surrounded by the communist secret police and Sauer was arrested along with other leading persons. A show trial of anti-communist sabotage was conducted against Sauer and his closest collaborators , which led to a previously established conviction of years of hard labor. The abbot bishop fell ill with asthma during his solitary confinement and was cared for by only one brother, Gregor Giegerich, in the last three months before his death. On February 7, 1950 at 6 a.m., Sauer died malnourished and ill in a prison in Pyongyang, only three days before his 50th anniversary of his profession. Shortly before his death he was emaciated and in pain he could no longer sleep. Two days before his death, he fell into a metabolic coma from which he never awoke. His grave is not known.

On May 10, 2007, the 58th anniversary of the occupation of the Tokwon Monastery by North Korean troops, Abbot Bishop Simon Ri of the South Korean Abbey of Waegwan, by solemnly signing a corresponding decree, beatified the group of Abbot Bishop Bonifaz Sauer, Father Benedikt Kim and his companions initiated. As a postulator Father Eduardo Lopez-Tello García OSB was (lecturer at the Pontifical Athenaeum of Saint Anselm in Rome and member of the ottilien congregation supported by the Vizepostulatoren Fathers Willibrord Driever and Sabbas Ri appointed).

The Catholic Church accepted Abbot-Bishop Bonifatius Sauer as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century .

Motto and coat of arms

Coat of arms of Abbot Bishop Bonifatius Sauer OSB with motto

As bishop, Sauer chose the motto Cruce et regula ("Through the cross and rule").

literature

• Konrad Heckelsmüller: † Abbot Bishop Bonifatius Sauer . In: Benediktinische Monatsschrift 25 (1949), pp. 466–467.
• Helmut Moll (Ed. On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference): Witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century. 6th, expanded and restructured edition. Paderborn u. a. 2015, ISBN 978-3-506-78080-5 , Volume II, pp. 1657-1660.
• Gottfried Sieber: Bonifaz Sauer (1877–1950), abbot and bishop in Korea (1921–1950). In: Godfrey Sieber, Cyrill Schäfer (Hrsg.): Resistance and mission. EOS, St. Ottilien 2003, pp. 351-356, ISBN 3-8306-8007-4 .

Web links

• Entry to Bonifatius Sauer on medals online
• Entry in the German Martyrology of the 20th Century
• Entry on Bonifatius Sauer on catholic-hierarchy.org

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Sermon on the 60th anniversary of the death of Abbot Bishop Bonifaz Sauer OSB on February 7, 2010 in Fulda Cathedral ( Memento from December 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ).
2. ↑ Information on Bonifatius Sauer on orden-online.de, accessed on December 3, 2013.
3. ↑ Sauer, Bonifaz . In: Biographia Benedictina (Benedictine Biography), version of September 25, 2011, URL .
4. ↑ missionsblätter - The magazine of the Missionsbenediktiner von St. Ottilien, 102nd volume, issue, 2007, p. 4–7, here p. 6. ( Memento from December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
5. ^ Information from the Missionary Benedictines on the beatification of Bonifatius Sauer ( memento of March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 3, 2013.
6. ↑ Latest news from Münsterschwarzach Abbey: Faith shaped your life: Münsterschwarzach Abbey celebrates “100 years of Mission to Korea”. ( Memento from December 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

predecessor	Office	successor
Chrysostomus Schmid (Prior)	Abbot Bishop of Tokwon Territorial Abbey 1940–1950	Timotheus Bitterli