Christoph Mähler

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Christoph Mähler , baptized name Rudolph Christoph Mähler (born April 11, 1736 in Lengenfeld unterm Stein , Thuringia ; † May 7, 1814 in Speyer ) was a Catholic priest , Jesuit , episcopal provicer and pastor of Speyer.

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origin

Rudolph Christoph Mähler was the first son of the Raschmacher Nikolaus Mähler and his wife Anna Margaretha nee. Vogt. At that time, the home community belonged politically and religiously to the Archdiocese of Mainz . He attended the Jesuit college in Heiligenstadt (today Eichsfelder Heimatmuseum) and joined the Jesuit order on September 15, 1754. Mähler was ordained priest on September 8, 1766 in Worms .

Work in the Principality of Speyer

Bruchsal Castle , the residence of the Speyer prince-bishops

On August 21, 1773 Pope Clement XIV abolished the Jesuit order with the bull “Dominus ac redemptor noster” ; the Speyer prince-bishop August von Limburg-Stirum took over Father Mähler in the diocesan service and employed him as court chaplain in his residence in Bruchsal . Soon he won the trust of the bishop and from 1779 belonged to the secret spiritual council of the diocese. The minutes of the meetings of this body between 1779 and 1784 were all written by Mähler. On March 31, 1780 he received the benefit of St. Nicholas and St. Catherine in Ubstadt without having to live there. When the bishop's confessor, court chaplain (and ex-Jesuit) Peter Strobel, died on August 26, 1781, he was awarded his benefice of St. Lawrence in Schifferstadt . In February 1786 Mähler was accepted as a canon in the All Saints Monastery in Speyer , but he continued to live in Bruchsal as a clergyman and sealer.

On July 12, 1788, Christoph Mähler moved to Speyer. There he was responsible for the monasteries and later also for the schools and in 1789 he got the reprint of the “Proprium Spirense” for the missal and breviary of the diocese of Speyer. In addition, the clergyman dealt with the history of the bishopric and submitted a "Diplomatic History of the Speyer Monastery" to the bishop for approval on September 9, 1793. However, due to the rapid political events, the work was no longer printed.

As early as September 30, 1792, French revolutionary troops under General Adam-Philippe de Custine had occupied Speyer and Mähler had fled to Bruchsal on the right bank of the Rhine, where he taught at the seminary. In 1793 he was able to return to Speyer, but the French moved back into the city at the end of December and he had to flee again. In January 1794, the revolutionaries began to devastate the cathedral and the other churches. At the end of May Christoph Mähler was able to come back to Speyer because the French had left.

On June 21, 1794 he was appointed by the Speyer prince-bishop as his commissioner (representative) in Speyer. Every month in this function he gave the bishop an account of the church conditions and their administration in Speyer and the surrounding area. In a makeshift manner, he was able to restore the damaged Jesuit church in order to be able to celebrate the city services there. He took care of the pastoral care of the Catholics in the city of Speyer, with the support of the Augustinian Father Florentinräder and the later pastor of St. German, Konrad Amaden.

When the Peace of Campo Formio was concluded (1797), Speyer was ceded to France as part of the German area on the left bank of the Rhine , where it remained until 1814. On March 4, 1798, Mähler was attacked by forty soldiers in his apartment and taken to Mainz, but was released again.

Episcopal provicer

The Speyer Cathedral, with a baroque facade; Appearance of the cathedral at the time of Christoph Mähler
Title page of Mähler's hymn book “Core of all chants for parish services”, 1804

As a result of the French occupation of the German territories on the left of the Rhine, dioceses that were congruent in area were established in accordance with the Concordat of 1801 between Pope Pius VII and Napoleon , in each of the departmental seats. The old dioceses - including Mainz, Worms and Speyer - were declared dissolved (with regard to their left bank, now French parts). The area of ​​what is now Rheinhessen-Pfalz was merged into the new French Département du Mont-Tonnerre with the capital Mainz . The new, exclusively on the left bank of the Rhine, the Grand Diocese of Mainz, was built congruently, uniting the left bank areas of the old dioceses of Mainz and Worms , as well as considerable parts of the left bank territory of the old diocese of Speyer . Politically, Speyer now belongs to the Département du Mont-Tonnerre, ecclesiastically to the new, French Grand Diocese of Mainz, whose first and only bishop on July 6, 1802, the Alsatian Joseph Ludwig Colmar advanced to. This appointed Mähler as episcopal provicer for the old Speyer diocese parts in the new Mainz bishopric and as canton priest in Speyer.

When the French wanted to demolish the Speyer Cathedral down to the vestibule, Christoph Mähler was one of the cathedral's most dedicated protectors and was in constant communication with Bishop Colmar, who finally managed to thwart the project through his personal connections to Napoleon . Pastor Mähler, as the representative of the local bishop, had contributed significantly to the preservation of the cathedral; the clergyman was in constant confrontation with the French sub-prefect Verny. On September 23, 1806, Emperor Napoleon returned the cathedral to the Catholics. The solemn occupation took place on November 7th of that year; in the presence of pastor Mähler, the mayor Ludwig Wilhelm Sonntag read out the relevant order in front of the cathedral. For the next day, Mähler summoned the Speyer craftsmen to the town hall to negotiate the construction costs with them. However, at that time only the worst damage could be repaired. As since 1805, the monastery church of St. Magdalena continued to serve for worship .

As early as 1800, Christoph Mähler published the hymn book "Core of all chants for parish services" with the permission and at the expense of the last Speyer prince-bishop Philipp Franz Wilderich Nepomuk von Walderdorf , which summarized the most common church hymns in the region and for a long time in the new diocese of Speyer (after 1817) was used. The printing works Georges und Prinz in Landau later published the booklet with singing notes, for which Bishop Colmar again gave his permission in 1810.

Pastor Christoph Mähler died on May 7, 1814, around 8 p.m. His successor as pastor and provicer was the later Speyer cathedral capitular Franz Christoph Günther . He collected and rescued Mähler's manuscripts on the history of the diocese, but despite great effort, he was unable to find all of them. For the Speyer Schematism of 1826 Günther wrote a "Brief Review of the Bishops of Speyer in their order, from the creation of the diocese to its extinction in 1802" . For the first time, the life of the last eight Speyer prince-bishops was briefly examined. For this work, Cathedral Chapter Günther was able to rely on Mähler's preliminary work.

Christoph Mähler's niece Margaretha Mähler (1787–1825) from his hometown Eichsfeld donated a tombstone to him in Speyer, the inscription of which is recorded in the chronicle of the Magdalenenkloster there. It read:

“ Here lies the good shepherd Christoph Mähler, who fell asleep in the Lord on May 7, 1814, 78 years old, to rest from his apostolic work, because he was shining, awaiting a joyous resurrection at the feet of Jesus, from whose company he was 30 years as a Speier spiritual councilor, 12 years as praeses in the episcopal provincial office in Mainz and 16 years as a pastor in the local city, who did all things good, who only grieved no one but everyone only through his death, especially Margaretha Mähler, who took this monument to the Established love and gratitude to her spiritual father and biological father's brother. "

In the parish priest of the cathedral parish Speyer (1941) it says about Mähler:

“ His name always deserves to be honored in the cathedral parish, because he worked zealously and tirelessly in it under the most difficult conditions, rebuilding the parish on the ruins of church life after the French Revolution. "

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Franz Xaver Remling: Modern history of the bishops of Speyer, including the document book , Speyer 1867, page 460


personal data
SURNAME Mähler, Christoph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mähler, Christoph Rudolph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Catholic priest, episcopal provicer in Speyer
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1736
PLACE OF BIRTH Lengenfeld under the stone
DATE OF DEATH May 7, 1814
Place of death Speyer