Domitilla Veith

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Domitilla Veith OSB (real name Margit Maria Veith ; * May 10, 1928 in Striegau , Lower Silesia Province ; † January 22, 2014 on the Fraueninsel ) was a German high school teacher and Benedictine . From 1980 to 2003 she was the 55th abbess of the Frauenchiemsee monastery , which is also known as Frauenwörth . She wrote several historical and theological works.

Life

Her parents were Franz and Anna Veith, geb. Müller. Margit Maria had three younger brothers. After attending the four-class Catholic elementary school in Striegau, she switched to the lyceum for girls, which, however, had to be merged with the secondary school for boys after the start of the war in 1939, as the rooms were needed as a hospital. After Striegau fell to Poland after the Second World War in 1945, like almost all of Silesia, the mother fled to West Germany with Margit Maria and one of the sons in April 1946 . The family was able to be reunited in Bad Wildungen , Hesse , because the father, who could no longer return to his homeland from military service, had found a place to stay there. Margit Maria attended grammar school in Bad Wildungen, which she graduated from high school in 1948. She then studied German and English at the University of Frankfurt am Main , which she graduated with the state examination. She then taught German, English and American literature at the Benedictine Women's College of Mt. Angel in Oregon , USA. There she decided to join the Order of the Benedictine Sisters and chose the Frauenwörth Abbey on the Fraueninsel in the Chiemsee.

She received an important impetus for this decision in her Silesian homeland from her high school teacher Ruth Thon (1905–1981). Since 1940 she was an oblate of the Benedictine Abbey of Grüssau, not far from Striegau . From 1943 until the end of the war, she accompanied schoolgirls to Grüssau several times. There, Prior Nikolaus von Lutterotti conveyed to them the basics of Benedictine liturgy as well as texts from the Holy Scriptures in a circle of like-minded people . In this way they developed the spiritual basis for their inner resistance against National Socialism . Since holding retreats was strictly forbidden, the meetings were announced as "Liturgical Work Weeks".

After returning from the USA, Margit Maria Veith entered the Frauenchiemsee Monastery on October 5, 1956. After her legal traineeship in Fulda from 1957 to 1959 , the novitiate followed . She chose “Maria Domitilla” as the religious name . She took her religious vows on June 4, 1963. In the same year, the home and school management of the monastery schools was transferred to her.

After Abbess Stephania Wolf's resignation at the end of 1979, Maria Domitilla Veith was elected her successor. She was ordained abbess on February 10, 1980 by the then Archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger , who later became Pope Benedict XVI.

For economic reasons, the monastery property was leased on the mainland during her tenure. In 1983 the grammar school had to be closed, in 1995 the vocational school and the vocational training school. Instead, adult education was set up, which necessitated extensive renovations to the monastery buildings as well as the equipment of the seminar rooms. To finance these measures, a support association was founded, headed by Alois Glück , member of the state parliament . After the fall of the Iron Curtain , Abbess Domitilla supported the training of priests in Ukraine with the “Helferkreis Ternopil”. When she reached the age of 75 in 2003, she resigned from her position as head of the monastery.

Since 1995 Abbess Domitila Veith has been a member of the Bayernbund , which has its seat in Rosenheim. She was a member of the Advisory Board and was made an honorary member in 2008.

She died on January 22, 2014; the urn burial in the monastery cemetery took place on February 6th. J. instead.

Works (selection)

  • On the school history of the Inselkloster , Winfried-Werk, Augsburg, 1974
  • Secularization and re-establishment of the Frauenwörth Abbey , 1988
  • Participating patiently in the sufferings of Christ , 1985 (together with Ambrosius Rose, OSB)
  • The priest Joseph Rauchbichler (1790–1858) , EOS-Verlag St. Ottilien, 1990
  • Benedictine life in Frauenchiemsee Abbey , 2003

literature

  • Schlesischer Kulturspiegel, Würzburg 2003, p. 48f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Inge Steinstrasse: Wanderer between the political powers. Father Nikolaus von Lutterotti OSB (1892–1955) and the Grüssau Abbey in Lower Silesia . Böhlau Verlag 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20429-7 , pp. XVI and 125
  2. ^ Samerberger Nachrichten, accessed October 23, 2015 ( Memento from July 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Report on the urn burial, accessed October 24, 2015
predecessor Office successor
Stephania Wolf Abbess of Frauenchiemsee
1980-2003 		Johanna Mayer
personal data
SURNAME Veith, Domitilla
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Veith, Maria Domitilla; Veith, Margit Maria (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Abbess of the Frauenchiemsee Monastery (1980-2003)
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Striegau , Lower Silesia Province
DATE OF DEATH 22th January 2014
Place of death Frauenchiemsee