Friedrich Heiler

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Friedrich Heiler (born January 30, 1892 in Munich ; † April 18, 1967 there ) was a German scholar of religion . His teachings contributed significantly to the establishment of the subject of religious studies.

Life

Friedrich Heiler's family and upbringing were Roman Catholic . 1911 Abitur at the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich . Until 1917 he studied at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Munich and completed his studies with a dissertation ; one year later, Heiler completed his habilitation in general religious history in Munich. In 1919 he met healer Nathan Söderblom , the main initiator of the later World Council of Churches , and gave six lectures in Sweden on the nature of Catholicism .

By accepting the Lord's Supper under both guises , Heiler became a member of the Lutheran Church of Sweden , without ever declaring his resignation from the Roman Catholic Church to a state authority - as it became mandatory under the 1929 Concordat and would have resulted in immediate excommunication - or to declare his entry into the Evangelical Church. He met Anne Marie Ostermann , who later became a member of the Bundestag , and married her in 1921; they had three daughters. From then on, Heiler was committed to Christian ecumenism .

From 1929 to 1933 and 1947 to 1962 Friedrich Heiler was the first chairman of what is today the high church association of the Augsburg Confession . As a sign of the unity of the church, the members asked him to acquire the episcopal apostolic succession for the High Church of St. John Brotherhood founded in 1929 . Healer searched for a possibility for two years and found it after long and unsuccessful attempts in the Gallican Church . Healers and the members of the brotherhood thus hoped to remove the greatest obstacle in ecumenism by introducing episcopal apostolic succession. Heiler received the apostolic ordination on August 25, 1930 in Rüschlikon (Switzerland) by Bishop Pierre Gaston Vigué , who was in a Syrian Orthodox line through Joseph René Vilatte . Heiler (bishop's name: Irenaeus) himself gave a lecture on this in an essay in The Wrestling for the Church .

During the time of National Socialism, Heiler was forcibly transferred to the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Marburg because he was not ready to sign the Aryan Paragraph, was appointed by his friend Rudolf Otto as a religious scholar and was also head of the religious studies collection there . In 1934 Heiler was the first Protestant to hold a conversation about faith with the Berlin Bishop Nikolaus Bares . Heiler is a co-founder of the Una Sancta movement , which still exists today. After his retirement , Heiler continued to work as a professor for the history of religion at the theological faculty and then moved to Munich, where he took on further teaching positions.

He dedicated his whole life to the idea of ​​"Evangelical Catholicity" and the unity of the Church. He was the editor of several magazines: The High Church , One Holy Church , Ecumenical Unity . Heiler founded brotherhoods - the High Church of St. John Brotherhood (1929–1933; 1947 to the present day) and the Evangelical Franciscan Tertiary (1931 to present day) - and was the spiritus rector of the High Church Association. Heiler was also a member of the non-denominational association for free Christianity .

He died after a long illness in 1967 in his native Munich; his grave is in Munich's Ostfriedhof . The grave inscription reads: "A researcher of religions and their mysteries / A teacher and priest of the Church of Christ / A herald of the unity of Christianity and humanity / Ut omnes unum."

Work and teaching

Heiler contributed significantly to the establishment of the subject of religious studies. His dissertation from 1917 examines the forms of prayer in the various religions and was published in several editions with great resonance. Different approaches can be recognized in Heiler's writings, religious-scientific, ecumenical - Christian and interreligious.

As a border crosser between Catholicism and Protestantism, he is one of the main stimuli of the high church movement in Germany. He put together his own Mass liturgy from texts and rites from various traditions , which he celebrated regularly in Marburg. It should be emphasized that Heiler made little effort to methodological differentiation between religious studies and theology , so that his work is strongly influenced by a liberal theology, and that Heiler mixed religious studies strongly with a kind of religious philosophy . Healer's work was accompanied by the hope that comparative religious studies could contribute to understanding and unification of religions. The last chapter of his book The Religions of Mankind in Past and Present , published in 1959, bears the title “Attempt at a synthesis of religions and a new religion of mankind”.

In his main work, Forms and Essence of Religion , Heiler speaks right at the beginning of religion as the strongest support, highest dignity, greatest wealth and deepest bliss of man, and in this work he brings together extensive encyclopedic knowledge.

Heiler lists five prerequisites for the study of religion: inductive knowledge of religions and their phenomena, occupation with the written sources of religions, direct experience of religions in mosques , temples , synagogues , etc., a universal attitude and a phenomenological method, under the healer understands an advance from appearance to the "essence" of religion. In addition to the scientific prerequisites, there are special religious prerequisites, since Heiler assumed that one could not merely grasp religion with rational - for example psychological or philological - standards, but that reverence for religions, personal religious experience and the seriousness of religious truth claims were required .

This personal approach by Healer is problematized in religious studies nowadays, since a mixture of religious feeling and scientific analysis should be avoided. The difficulty that a phenomenon cannot be adequately perceived “objectively” without contact with the perceiving subject remains.

Publications (selection)

  • Buddhist immersion. A study of the history of religion . Reinhardt, Munich 1918; 2. A. ibid. 1922 digitized
  • The prayer. An investigation into the history of religion and the psychology of religion (= Diss. Munich 1917). Reinhardt, Munich 1919; Un. reprint of the 5th edition 1923 ibid. 1969. - Digitized version (3rd edition Munich 1921)
  • The essence of Catholicism. Six lectures given in Sweden in autumn 1919 . Reinhardt, Munich 1920
    • Revised as: Catholicism. Its idea and its appearance . Reinhardt, Munich 1923; unv. reprint ibid. 1970
  • Catholic and Protestant worship . Kaiser, Munich 1921; 2. A. Reinhart, Munich 1925
  • Sadhu Sundar Singh . An apostle of the east and west . Reinhart, Munich 1924; Turm, Bietigheim 1987 (= reprint of 4. A. Munich 1926), ISBN 3-7999-0220-1
  • Evangelical catholicity (= collected essays and lectures, volume 1). Reinhardt, Munich 1926
  • In the struggle for the church (= collected essays and lectures, volume 2). Reinhardt, Munich 1931
  • Early Church and Eastern Church (= The Catholic Church of the East and West, Volume 1). Reinhardt, Munich 1937
    • Revised as: The Eastern Churches . Reinhardt, Munich 1971
  • Old church autonomy and papal centralism (= The Catholic Church of the East and West, Volume 2, Part 1). Reinhardt, Munich 1941
  • The father of Catholic modernism. Alfred Loisy (1857-1940) . Erasmus, Munich 1947
  • Mystery Caritatis. Sermons for the church year . Reinhardt, 11th edition, Munich 1949
  • The religions of mankind in the past and present (as ed., With the collaboration of Kurt Goldammer , Franz Hesse , Günter Lanczkowski , Käthe Neumann and Annemarie Schimmel ). Reclam ( UB 8274-85), Stuttgart 1959; 2nd A. 1962
    • New edition (= 3rd edition) by Kurt Goldammer as: The religions of humanity. Reclam, Stuttgart 1980; 7th edition 2003, ISBN 3-15-010460-2 .
  • Forms and essence of religion. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1961 ( The Religions of Mankind , Vol. 1); 2nd, improved edition, ibid 1979, ISBN 3-17-004967-4 .
  • Ecclesia Caritatis. Ecumenical sermons for the church year. Edel, Marburg 1964.
  • On becoming ecumenical. 2 lectures . Evang. Missionsverlag (Supplement to Ecumenical Review 6), Stuttgart 1967
  • The woman in the religions of mankind . De Gruyter (Theological Library Töpelmann 33), Berlin 1977
  • Circular letters of the East Asia and India trip . With a prosopography ed. by Udo Tworuschka . Lembeck, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-87476-416-8

literature

  • Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz:  Friedrich Heiler. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 660-661.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Ernst Dammann :  Healer, Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-00189-3 , p. 259 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Christel Matthias Schröder (Ed.): In Deo Omnia Unum. A collection of essays presented to Friedrich Heiler on his 50th birthday. Reinhardt, Munich 1942.
  • Emmanuel Jungclaussen (Ed.): The greater ecumenism. Conversation about Friedrich Heiler. Pustet, Regensburg 1970.
  • Anne Marie Heiler (Ed.): Inter Confessiones. Contributions to the promotion of interdenominational and interreligious dialogue. Friedrich Heiler in memory of his 80th birthday on January 30th, 1972 (= Marburg Theological Studies. Vol. 10). Elwert, Marburg 1972, ISBN 3-7708-0463-5 .
  • Paul Misner (Ed.): Correspondence 1909–1931 (with Friedrich von Hügel and Nathan Söderblom). Bonifatius, Paderborn 1981.
  • Hans Hartog: Evangelical catholicity. Friedrich Heiler's path and vision. Grünewald, Mainz 1995, ISBN 3-7867-1836-9 .
  • Michael Pye: Friedrich Heiler (1892-1967) , in: Axel Michaels (Hrsg.): Classics of Religious Studies. Beck, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-406-42813-4 .
  • Annette Klement: Reconciliation of the different. Friedrich Heiler's struggle for “one” church reflected in his correspondence with Catholic theologians. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-631-31577-5 .
  • Karl Dienst : Praying and Understanding. A religious studies approach to Friedrich Heiler (1892-1967). In: Journal of Religious Culture / Journal für Religionskultur. No. 17, 1998, pp. 1-12 ( PDF ).
  • Friedrich Heiler. In: Udo Tworuschka : Religious Studies. Trailblazers and classics. Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2011, pp. 197–213 (lit., source text and work assignments).

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "That all may be one" ( Joh 17.21  VUL )
personal data
SURNAME Healer, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher and religious scholar
DATE OF BIRTH January 30, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 1967
Place of death Munich