Christian Schreiber (Bishop)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christian Schreiber
Schreiber's coat of arms as Bishop of Berlin (1930–1933)

Christian Schreiber (born August 3, 1872 in Somborn near Gelnhausen; † September 1, 1933 in Berlin ) was the first bishop of the re-established Catholic diocese of Meißen (later Dresden-Meißen) from 1921 to 1929 and then the first shepherd of the new diocese until his death Berlin .

Life

In 1892 he passed the Abitur at the Fulda high school and switched to the local seminary . Because of his talent, he was sent to Rome to the Collegium Germanicum , where he became director of the Choralschola in 1895 and was ordained priest on October 28, 1898 . In Rome he also received his doctorate in theology and philosophy and in the same year became professor of philosophy at the Fulda seminary . In 1907 he took over the leadership of the seminary as Regens . From 1907 to 1921 he was co-editor of the Philosophical Yearbook of the Görres Society .

Bishop of Meissen

On August 12, 1921, Pope Benedict XV was scribe . appointed first bishop of the re-established diocese of Meißen , consecrated bishop on September 14, 1921 by Bishop Joseph Damian Schmitt in Fulda, in order to then take up his office at the diocese of Bautzen . His motto was In caritate Dei . The main focus of his episcopal work was the creation of the most necessary diocesan institutions and the revival of Catholicism in the Saxon diaspora. In 1921 he founded the Diocesan Charity Association, in 1923 he organized the first diocesan synod , and in 1927 he founded the Schmochtitz seminary near Bautzen (destroyed in the Second World War). He increased the number of pastoral care offices from 65 to 90, the number of priests rose from 126 to 152 during Schreiber's term of office. In Goppeln near Dresden and in Bautzen he founded a Franciscan monastery . In 1922/23 he successfully campaigned for the preservation of the Catholic denominational school in the Free State of Saxony. With numerous pastoral trips he kept in close contact with the clergy and the faithful. The Saxon Catholic Days, which are held annually and are strongly supported by Schreiber, served to strengthen Catholic self-confidence . Christian Schreiber was the first Catholic clergyman to give lectures at the University of Leipzig since the Reformation .

In his Saxon diocese, the bishop struggled with financial difficulties throughout his tenure. The reorganization of the church institutions cost a lot of money, but the episcopal chair had hardly any property of its own and the income from church taxes was low because the majority of Saxon Catholics belonged to the low-income classes. The situation was made more difficult by inflation in the early twenties. Schreiber therefore tried to get additional support from the Pope and the Curia on his annual trips to Rome, but only succeeded in a few cases. He even went on a trip to the USA, during which he raised money for his diocese.

The Bishop and the Sorbs

Bishop Christian Schreiber

Schreiber's contributions to the reorganization and strengthening of Catholicism in the Saxon diaspora were widely recognized by the faithful. His dealings with the Sorbs in the diocese, however, have torn deep rifts between the Sorbian believers and priests on the one hand and the church hierarchy on the other.

At the beginning of his term of office, the bishop had at least made a misunderstanding, so that the Catholic Sorbs got the impression that they were dealing with a German nationalist pastor who, in agreement with state policy, advocated the Germanization of the small Slavic people. A big mistake Schreiber was that he stuck to the Sudeten German Redemptorist Father Joseph Watzl as his closest adviser. This increasingly came out with anti-Sorb expressions and even supported the activities of the anti- Sorb Wende department in Bautzen.

From the Sorbian side, the bishop was also charged with closing the Wendish seminary in Prague, which, however, was the responsibility of the Bautzen chapter and was also due to financial and canonical constraints. However, the bishop failed to explain these facts to the Sorbian public. Rather, the Wendish seminar was carried out as a secret operation.

The scandal occurred during the diocesan synod in 1923 in the St. Marienstern monastery . There the bishop had the Sorbian church newspaper Katolski Posoł condemned a handful of articles as hostile to the church for so-called unchurch viewpoints without even having spoken to the editors and authors (Sorbian priests) beforehand. Schreiber humiliated the Sorbian cathedral dean Jakub Skala , who had pleaded with his pastor to settle the conflict and to acknowledge the services of Katolski Posoł to the church.

Three younger Sorbian clergy responded to this and other incidents at the synod by suing the bishop as the person responsible at the Holy See. For the first time, open resistance against the church hierarchy was offered from within the traditional Catholic milieu of the Sorbs. Schreiber was deeply affected by this disobedience and there was no reconciliation until he left for Berlin. Rome let the Sorbian lawsuit fizzle out, probably also because Schreiber was able to credibly assure that the clergy who brought the lawsuit did not represent the entire Sorbian clergy. Indeed, the Catholic Sorbs were divided as far as relations with the bishop were concerned. Schreiber also had some followers among the priests, many behaved neutrally and not a few were his bitter opponents.

In 1928 there was another conflict between the bishop and the Sorbs. It was about the occupation of the rectory at the Bautzen Sorbian Catholic Church of Our Lady with a German clergyman. On the Sorbian side, the opposition to the bishop was supported this time mainly by Catholic lay people.

Bishop of Berlin

Scribe during a Corpus Christi procession in Berlin, 1930
Gravestone in the lower church of St. Hedwig's Cathedral

1929 was scribe of Pius XI. appointed apostolic administrator of the newly established diocese of Berlin and a year later with the inauguration on August 31, 1930 his definitive translation to Berlin took place. At the beginning of 1931 he handed over the diocese of Meißen to his successor Conrad Gröber .

In Berlin, Schreiber first had to create the central diocese institutions. He constituted the cathedral chapter on January 1, 1931, acquired an office building and set up a seminary in 1932 . In his short term as bishop he was able to inaugurate 38 churches and chapels and set up 20 new pastoral care offices. He also traveled extensively in this diocese. The presentation of Catholicism in public was particularly important to him, which is why he celebrates Catholic holidays and meetings, such as B. the Corpus Christi festival and the Brandenburg Catholic Days , as public confession celebrations. Hedwig's cathedral church , which was redesigned with state aid, was also done for a representative reason. On September 1, 1933, Bishop Schreiber died of a heart condition and was buried in the crypt of Hedwig's Cathedral.

Relationship to National Socialism

Schreiber was always very involved in politics; after 1918 he appeared several times at Center Party events and also dealt with political issues in his pastoral letters. At first he was positive about the emergence of National Socialism. In 1931 he deliberately interfered in this discussion in the Cartel Association of Catholic German Student Associations ( KV ) and declared that he considered it “permissible and welcome if a well-educated Catholic were active within the NSDAP in order to support the efforts and objectionable from the church's point of view Countering views. For reasons of expediency, it is advisable not to give an express statement by the KV against the NSDAP. "

When Franz von Papen became Chancellor in 1932 and the Prussian government was ousted by a coup d'état, and the NSDAP had won more than a third of the seats in the Reichstag elections of July 31, 1932, Schreiber had it said: “Today, the National Socialist party has not only politically but also morally developed so unfavorable "was, he believes," is not enough before the Nazi party that all Catholics, even academics warn could. Accordingly, if he were asked again today, his opinion on a corresponding decision of the KV would be a significantly different one. ”Schreiber expressly pointed out that membership in the NSDAP is forbidden for Catholics and those“ who despite warning and instruction stick to it, the church benefits would be robbed. ”(quoted by S. Koß - see literature) The KV had this statement disseminated before the Reichstag elections on November 5, 1932.

honors and awards

Works

  • Christianity and natural science , Fulda 1902.
  • The school supervision question , Fulda 1910.
  • Kant and the proofs of God . Philosophical trains of thought from my lectures at Leipzig University in January and February 1922 , Dresden 1922.
  • Guide through the church year , from the estate ed. by A. Strehler, Berlin 1934.

literature

Web links

Commons : Christian Schreiber  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b "Bishop Dr. Christian Schreiber (1872–1933) DAB V / 18 “ , DAB, accessed on April 27, 2011
predecessor Office successor
Jakub Skala
as administrator of the Apostolic Prefecture of Upper Lusatia 		Bishop of Meissen
1921–1930 		Conrad Groeber
( Josef Deitmer ) Bishop of Berlin
1930–1933 		Nicholas cash
personal data
SURNAME Schreiber, Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Catholic bishop
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Somborn
DATE OF DEATH September 1, 1933
Place of death Berlin