Johannes Evangelista Goßner

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Johannes Goßner (lithography)
Johannes Goßner
Trip threshold in front of the house, Handjerystraße 20a, in Berlin-Friedenau

Johannes Evangelista Goßner (born December 14, 1773 in Hausen between Günzburg and Krumbach , † March 30, 1858 in Berlin ) was a German author, pastor, hymn poet and missionary.

Goßner saw himself as a preacher of the Christian gospel - first as a priest of the Roman Catholic Church , then as a Protestant pastor . He achieved lasting importance as a writer and author of numerous books and writings. He became the founder and founder of diaconal and missionary organizations at home and abroad. He was the pastor of individuals and communities. He exchanged letters with important personalities of the 19th century. He was in close contact with the missionaries he sent and prayed for them. His thinking and belief - speaking and doing were inspired by the church awakening movements of the Landshut district around Bishop Johann Michael Sailer and Martin Boos and by the Moravian Brethren around Count von Zinzendorf . He is regarded as the pioneer, founder and uncomfortable admonisher of the church for a holistic mission in witness and service, word and deed, within and - across borders - outside the existing borders. He trained craftsmen to be missionaries and sent a total of 141 missionary craftsmen to Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, Samoa, Guatemala, the Dutch East Indies, South Africa, West Africa, Mauritius, Tubai Islands, North America, Canada and especially to India.

The Gossner Mission named after him is currently structured as a foundation that promotes project-related ecumenical cooperation, community work and industrial missions in Germany , as well as with partners in Nepal , Zambia , Uganda and India (there with the Gossner Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Chotanagpur and Assam , GELC for short).

Goßner in Bavaria and Prussia (1773-1819)

Goßner was born on December 14, 1773 in Hausen, parish of Waldstetten , at that time the district of Krumbach in Bavarian Swabia , as the son of devout Catholic parents. He attended the village school in Waldstetten, the grammar school in Augsburg , the universities of Dillingen (philosophy and physics) and Ingolstadt (theology). He was ordained a priest on October 9, 1796, continued his training at the Pfaffenhausen seminary , and went to Stoffenried and Neuburg as a chaplain . At this time he was already reading pious Protestant writers such as Matthias Claudius and Gerhard Tersteegen and was deeply impressed by Johann Caspar Lavater . With them he overcame Enlightenment thinking by paying new attention to his feelings. Concepts such as enjoyment , friendship , virtue and religion were decisive for his reflection . With the year 1798 approaches to the convictions of the Catholic revival movement began around Bishop Sailer and Martin Boos. Goßner became aware that he was interpreting the Bible in an evangelical way. That brought him suspicions and reenactments and in 1802 even the priestly prison in Göggingen . As a result of Napoleon's intervention in German conditions, modernization began in Bavaria in 1803 as well as the secularization of ecclesiastical property. Minister Montgelas , an enlightening reformer now in the service of the elector (or, since 1806, king) of Bavaria, paradoxically, also initiated Goßner's rehabilitation in 1803 and made it possible for him to be free to proclaim. Goßner received permission to work as a parish priest in Dirlewang until 1809 .

In view of the calamities that the Napoleonic wars also wreaked in Goßner's communities, nursing and social services were given the same status as pastoral care and sermons . Goßner became known through numerous publications. His "Herzbüchlein" (The Heart of Man) became world famous. After a serious illness, he was offered a position in Basel in 1811 as secretary of the non-denominational Christianity Society . Goßner considered converting to the Evangelical Church, but rejected this idea again. In the same year he moved to Munich to take on a position at the Frauenkirche . He put his focus on Sunday school work with children and parents.

The victory over Napoleon and the agreements of the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and the restoration that began brought him reenactments by the Jesuits . In 1819 he found a job as a high school professor and school priest in Düsseldorf - where Martin Boos had previously been. There he received an appointment as pastor at the Catholic Maltese Church in St. Petersburg in 1820 . Emperor and Tsar Alexander I , co-founder of the conservative-restorative “Holy Alliance”, strived for spiritual renewal for Russia and hoped for the same for the Russian Orthodox Church. Goßner was recommended to him for this project.

Goßner in Russia (1820-1824)

In Russia, too, Goßner emphasized the primary importance of renewing people's hearts and minds. He tried to gain influence on public figures and also on Orthodoxy through preaching and pastoral care. He considered the rapprochement of the churches and denominations for large parts of Russia. His influence reached as far as Finland . The combination of pastoral care and social work convinced the diplomats, merchants and above all the impoverished. His ballroom Bible studies were crowded. His opponents took Goßner's understanding of the Bible and a translation as an opportunity to remove him from the service and to denounce him. By order of Prince Metternich , the Tsar had to order Goßner's expulsion from Russia in 1824. Goßner sustained the loss of his beneficial field of activity in St. Petersburg for a lifetime. He was unable to understand that with his pure disposition he did not fit into the concept of the rulers who had declared themselves Christian. His legacy to the abandoned Goßner congregation is the song Bless and protect and the books Treasure Chest and Gold Grains from 1825. He was in personal contact with the congregation in St. Petersburg until the end of his life.

Goßner on the search (1824–1826)

Branded as politically persecuted, Goßner could not get a permanent job. He was accepted by friends and patrons in Hamburg and Altona, in Leipzig and on estates belonging to the German nobility. He worked as a preacher and pastor, corresponded and published his insights undaunted. Together with Johann Heinrich Tscherlitzky , he published a collection of songs in which, for the first time, a melody by Dmytro Bortnjanskyj , which Gossner had got to know in Russia, was combined with the chorale verse I pray to the power of love by Gerhard Tersteegen .

After the death of the Catholic priest Martin Boos, he managed to collect a large part of his extensive correspondence. This enabled him to document Boos 'life in an 800-page work and created the basis for numerous shorter depictions of Boos' life (1826) published in the following decades.

In Silesia there was an encounter with the core congregations of the Brethren. According to the custom there, he let the lot be decided about membership in the Brethren Union. He did not receive the confirmation. After long years of inner struggle in Königshain (Silesia), he converted to the Evangelical Church in Prussia on July 23, 1826 by participating in the Evangelical Supper . He initially followed further invitations to Protestant house communities on estates in Pomerania and East Prussia. He applied in vain to be a pastor at the free community of Korntal . His friends advised him to apply for recognition as a Protestant preacher in Berlin. He accepted an invitation from the von Schönberg family to Berlin and lived in their house from October 12, 1826. They paved the official way for him for his future work.

At the beginning of December Goßner moved into his own apartment on Brüderstraße, where he had Maria Ida (Itta, Idda) Bauberger, Goßner's housekeeper since 1803, come from Leipzig, and the cook Nanni from Bavaria with her.

Goßner in search of a pastor's position in Berlin (1826–1829)

Goßner applied to take over as pastor in the service of the Evangelical Church on January 12, 1827 at the Evangelical Consistory in Berlin . The now well-known theologian and preacher had to take a full church examination, which happened on December 17, 1827 and was certified on January 24, 1828. After a first application at the Bethlehem Church did not lead to employment, he took over services as an assistant preacher , initially at the Sophienkirche in the new parish in front of the Hamburger Tor zu Berlin.

The local pastors refused to cooperate, so from May 1827 he became assistant preacher in the Luisenstadtkirche . He moved into a rented apartment at Alte Jakobstrasse 102, where he experienced first hand the misery of the people in the suburbs of Berlin. He first recognized the need to set up infant care institutions and co-founded these first Christian social institutions. So it happened through Goßner's further transfer to the St. Georgen and Elisabeth parishes . The church was named after Crown Princess Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria , who was married to Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm and lived in Berlin and Potsdam in 1823. She was deeply touched by the misery in the suburbs of Berlin and remained so from 1840 as Queen at the side of Friedrich Wilhelm IV.

It was thanks to their influence that the faith-awakened circles of the court also supported the newly emerging works of Christian charity. This group of conservative, kings-loyal, Christian, benevolent-minded people was called “ camarilla ”. Under Wilhelm I , the successor of Friedrich Wilhelm IV, their influence was pushed back. Elisabeth felt a special closeness to Goßner, who like herself, brought up a Catholic and converted of free will and evangelical sentiments; who, like herself, used the Bavarian dialect, attached importance to cultivating the heart and, despite illness, always acted with renewed energy in the sense of Christian charity; who, like her, did not allow himself to be lured into the open field of political disputes and rarely commented directly on the changing political events. Neither was popular in the ostentatious capital. Their concern was to lead a life according to the order of the kingdom of God and less according to the order of the church and the political systems. Rather, they remained focused on people in their physical and emotional needs.

Goßner always turned to new tasks, depending on where he ended up looking for permanent employment between 1827 and 1829. He worked as a prison pastor and preacher for the Kottwitz Institute . He visited the sick in the neglected apartments and set up children's services in the Alexander barracks. Church representatives saw it as protest and provocation. Actually Goßner could not understand that in 1828 only two Berlin pastors released their pulpits for him: Stobwasser (Brethren Church) and Schleiermacher ( Trinity Church ). Goßner admitted himself in a letter as “tired of Berlin” - but he was not tired of missions. As two years before, the Bethlehem Church was open to occupation, and Goßner applied again. On March 31, 1829 - the beginning of Holy Week - Goßner was ordained as a "temporary preacher" of the Bethlehem Church. It had been under royal patronage since 1737 and was a Bohemian-Lutheran and Bohemian-Reformed simultaneous church . Your community was interdenominational and shaped by foreigners. With the service for the Bohemian-Moravian and the Reformed part of the congregation, Goßner was assigned the Lutheran part of the congregation. In his inaugural sermon he took stock of his previous life in Bavaria, Prussia and Russia. Goßner moved into the pastorate of the Bethlehem Church at Wilhelmstrasse 29. He stayed there for 15 years, the longest time of Goßner's permanent stay in one place.

Goßner as a preacher at the Bethlehem Church (1829–1846)

Goßner was the successor of Pastor Johannes Jaenicke , the preacher of the Bohemian Congregation in Berlin. In 1800 Jaenicke had founded the first Berlin missionary institution and a Bible Society . In 1824 a “ Society for the promotion of the Ev. Missions among the Gentiles ”, which still exists today as the“ Berliner Missionswerk ”. Jaenicke was on the committee. The Mission and Bible School of Jaenicke, under the direction of his son-in-law Magister Rückert, remained independent after Jaenicke's death in 1827 until it closed in 1849. Rückert had also applied for the pastor's position at the Bethlehem Church in 1829. Goßner got it and Rückert responded to Goßner's disappointment. Just like the founder Jaenicke, pastor of the Lutheran-Bohemian Congregation of the Bethlehem Church and appointed member of the committee of the Berlin Mission, Goßner was also appointed to the committee of the "Berlin Mission" as his successor in 1831. In his sermon on the sending of their first missionaries on May 29, 1833 in the Dreifaltigkeitskirche in Schleiermacher's pulpit, Goßner pleaded for a church that should make mission its own cause and not leave it to associations. For the first time he presented the idea of ​​integrating church and mission.

Disappointments about the compliance of the committee with the pressure of the administration on the Berlin mission soon led Goßner to reluctance to approach the committee. But he stuck to the mission's concerns and founded the journal Die Biene auf dem Missionsfelde in 1834 . He provided information and promoted the idea of ​​the "Outer Mission", which he would not give up despite his disappointment with "Berlin I". He resigned from the committee in 1836. He found his missionary work focus in social work and poor relief as " Inner Mission ". He founded the association for the promotion of nurseries . Since his arrival in Berlin in 1826, he was instrumental in founding the first seven child care centers. In his mind, Inner and Outer Mission are the two "twin sisters and favorite daughters of Jesus".

Goßner's holistic mission (1836)

Goßner founded nursing and sick visiting associations for the first time. First there was an association for men on September 9, 1833 at Mauerstraße 85, and on November 16, 1833 an association for women in Goßner's pastoral office. With the support of Crown Princess Elisabeth, this association acquired an apartment in Hirschelstrasse in 1836, which was set up as a hospital with 15 beds. This is how the story of the Elisabeth Hospital began . At the same time, he tirelessly deepened the interest and responsibility for the cross-border mission through his "bee".

So it was no coincidence that Goßner recognized that in the same year, on December 12th 1836, for the first time six young craftsmen signed up for missionary training with him, not with the “Berlinische” and not with the “Berliner”, but with Goßner. After gaining six more candidates and completing their training, they were sent out to serve on July 9, 1837 from the Bethlehem Church.

On October 18, 1837, the Elisabeth Hospital Haus in front of Potsdamer Tor with 40 beds was inaugurated as the first Protestant hospital in Berlin. Here women received training as nurses and as wives of Gossner's missionaries. To mark the occasion, Gossner wrote a sixteen-page book entitled: “ How must Christian nurses or evangelical sisters of mercy be made up? “In this programmatic work, Goßner saw the parable of the Good Samaritan from the Gospel of Luke as the most important basis for an activity in nursing. In 1838 Großner reported that three women had entered the Elisabeth Hospital who were being trained for missionary service; in 1842 there were already twelve " missionary assistants " who had been called to the " heathen world " in East India. By the time Goßner died in 1858, 22 of the 160 trained sisters had gone on to external missions.

Gossner's approach is not only characterized by the visible togetherness of mission inside and outside, but also the way there. He waited for the assignment that people would bring him. When people get in touch, he also finds - with success - the possibilities of a material realization for that which was striven for for spiritual reasons. Here it is the hospital and the beginnings of the missionary seminar. Because both foundings occurred almost simultaneously in the years 1836 and 1837, Goßner saw in this a coincidence and confirmation of his knowledge of holistic mission. Goßner kept the hospital management and the mission management in his hands until the end of his life. This is one of the reasons why he moved into a summer apartment on the property of the Elisabeth Hospital in Berlin in front of the Potsdamer Tor.

Goßner described his foundations and foundations as works of faith of holistic mission, which he had heard as the message of the Bible.

This point of view could hardly be conveyed to public law thinking. In public, Goßner was discredited as a "seller of souls". In legal matters, a five-year dispute began with the consistory about the need for a special legal form for the recognition of training, secondments, ordinations and money collections. It was not until June 28, 1842 that Goßner found himself ready with a statute for the “ Evangelical Mission Association for the Expansion of Christianity among the Natives of the Gentile Countries ” and bowed to the state guidelines. Now Gossner's missionaries could also found mission stations . “Gossner communities” emerge. Gossner's missionaries, primarily craftsmen, had previously been appointed to serve in other societies, associations and churches abroad. Gossner's contacts became international. Gossner had been learning English since 1843 - unusual for a seventy-year-old. He gave the Small Mission Association of the Bethlehem Church the character of an auxiliary committee in the home for its missionary work. In addition to the “bee”, he published the magazine “ Der Christian Hausfreund ” since 1843 for the homework of the mission in the house churches .

Goßner's religious movement and church planting (1837–1847)

A staff community had formed around Goßner , mainly from Schöneberg , Berlin-Moabit and from the pastoral care of the sick. In the overcrowded church, the seating arrangements according to confessions and denominations could no longer be adhered to. Professors, students, craftsmen, officers and civil servants, aristocrats, citizens, workers, unemployed and homeless, rich and poor, from all professions and classes, children, parents and grandparents came under his pulpit. This also emerged from a description of the funeral procession at his funeral on April 3, 1858.

With this emerging movement of faith around Goßner, the given rules for a clearly structured church system were set in motion. Community supervision and school supervision, missionary life and church order came into conflict with the supervisory authority to the point of the ultimate test. Finally, Goßner applied for the Bethlehem community to become independent. The consistory refused to approve. It was time for Goßner to apply for a transfer to retirement. Goßner's behavior is encountered again in the life stories of his missionaries and their dealings with the order of church and state and the rules in society. The Goßner missionaries are shaped by their search for a design from the life-creating spirit. Goßner encouraged them to overcome the letter through the spirit. Goßner stood up for faith mission , was cautious about church mission and rejected colonial mission.

Goßner's request for retirement was received by the consistory on February 11, 1846 and only received approval on April 10, 1847. For the last eleven years, Goßner moved into the summer house at Number 119 Potsdamer Strasse . Now he could devote himself even more intensively to looking after the Elisabeth Hospital. Twenty years later - ten years after his death - it became the core cell of a Goßner congregation under the name "Elisabeth Deaconess and Hospital" with a special status within the parish around the Matthäuskirche .

On October 25, 1850, his partner Maria Ida Bauberger died after severe suffering. She determines her fortune for Goßner's mission institutions. Sister Alwine looked after Goßner until his death in 1858.

Goßner in active retirement as "Mission and Church Father" (1848-1858)

In his retirement, Gossner sent 29 missionaries to new areas in Java, New Guinea, South Africa, Polynesia, New Zealand and Mauritius. He has trained and sent a total of 141 missionaries. He saw a major threat to his work in the revolution of 1848 , which drove the generous donors of the nobility and bourgeoisie out of Berlin. He urged them to return. He also urged the authorities to intervene and take action so that peace and order can be restored. The camarilla could have voted in the same way, but Goßner's name does not appear there. There were friends of Goßner there, but he did not make friends with political affairs. Goßner, who had lived and suffered in different political systems, insisted on the biblical instruction to do good, to fear God and to honor the king in view of the suffering of people and the failure of the systems ( 1 Pet 2,15-17  LUT ) .

As edifying as Goßner met the reader in his literary work and carefully formulated sermons, he expressed himself in letters, notes and personal encounters in a spirited to choleric manner. He did not spare the royal family with spiritual admonitions.

Fears about the continued existence of the mission fields in India arose again with Goßner when the outbreak and the end of the military uprising in India in 1857. The victorious English made India a British crown colony . He asked the English Mission Friends to take over responsibility for the mission field in Chotanagpur (India). But they didn't respond.

Goßner was able to entrust general superintendent Carl Büchsel with concern for the future of his religious works . This was pastor of the local parish of St. Matthäus, in whose area Goßner lived. At Goßner's request, Büchsel took over the management of the foundations, foundations and plantings. The handover took place on Sunday Palmarum 1858, the day he was introduced as a “temporary” preacher at the Bethlehem Church in 1829. Büchsel's willingness shows how faith and spirit, charisma and authority worked well into Goßner's old age.

The next day, on Monday, March 29, 1858, Goßner developed severe kidney bleeding.

On Tuesday, March 30th, Carl Büchsel handed him the Lord's Supper. Johannes Evangelista Goßner died at noon on March 30, 1858. During the Quiet Week he was laid out in his garden shed. On Good Friday, April 2, 1858 missionary treasure held there the Aussegnungsgottesdienst and accompanied the coffin to the Bethlehem church where the mortuary was made in the afternoon. On Holy Saturday the service began at 4 p.m. After its completion, the funeral procession moved through the traditional Wilhelmstrasse. A trumpet choir awaited the unmistakable funeral procession at the cemeteries in front of the Hallesches Tor . He escorted the Jerusalem cemetery to the border of the cemetery of the Bohemian community . Goßner was buried at the side of Ida Bauberger. General Superintendent Büchsel gave the funeral speech:

“He has rightly prayed the walls of the hospital, he has rightly prayed the hearts of the nurses in the hospital, he has rightly prayed the hearts of the rich, that they would open their hands far beyond the borders of our fatherland, he rightly prayed for them Missionary station in India and here on earth, through his prayer he held and carried the hearts of the missionaries through temptations and dangers, through his prayer he watered the work and accompanied it far into the world. Not only are his spiritual children here at the grave, but he has had his children in abundance far beyond our fatherland. Old Goßner was a prayer. "

The preserved grave is a wall grave with inscription panels on the east wall of field 3 of the cemetery. A lattice surrounds the grave field.

Remembrance day

March 30th in the Evangelical Name Calendar .

Works

  • The heart of man: a temple of God or a workshop of Satan. Represented symbolically in ten figures. For awakening and promoting the Christian mind , Augsburg, 2nd ed. 1813
  • Evangelical pulpit: interpretation and explanation of the Sunday and feast day gospels of the church year , 1843.

literature

Web links

Commons : Johannes Evangelista Goßner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The "autobiography" (ie the first half, without the letters in the addendum) in the 2nd edition from 1831 re-edited by Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer , for the first time in modern script and for the first time with a table of contents. Publishing house for culture and science, Bonn 2012.
  2. ↑ Christine Auer: History of the nursing professions as a subject. The curriculum development in nursing education and training , dissertation Institute for the history and ethics of medicine, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg , doctoral supervisor Wolfgang U. Eckart , Heidelberg Eigenverlag 2008, pp. 26, 28 and 33. Summary: History of nursing professions as a subject
  3. ↑ Uwe Kaminsky: Mother, daughter or twin sister? Unclear family relationships between outer and inner mission , in: Tobias Sarx, Rajah Scheepers, Michael Stahl (ed.): Protestantism and Society. Contributions to the history of the church and diakonia in the 19th and 20th centuries. Jochen-Christoph Kaiser on his 65th birthday, Kohlhammer Stuttgart 2013, pp. 93-105, ISBN 978-3-17-022505-3 .
  4. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 221.
  5. ↑ Johannes Evangelista Goßner in the ecumenical dictionary of saints
personal data
SURNAME Goßner, Johannes Evangelista
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Gospel preacher and founder of Christian organizations
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1773
PLACE OF BIRTH Hausen near Günzburg
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1858
Place of death Berlin