Heinrich Fries

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Frieze's tomb in Oedheim (Feb. 2008)

Heinrich Fries (born December 31, 1911 in Mannheim , † November 19, 1998 in Munich ) was one of the most committed Roman Catholic theologians of the ecumenical movement in the second half of the 20th century . He was professor of fundamental theology and ecumenical theology at the University of Munich and, as a theologian and through his participation in the ecumenical Una Sancta movement, campaigned for Christian unity.

Life

As the oldest child of a family of craftsmen, Heinrich Fries grew up in Oedheim , Heilbronn district. After the Latin school in Neuenstadt and the grammar school in Rottweil, he studied Catholic theology in Tübingen . In 1936 he was ordained a priest . Then he was vicar in Stuttgart, later vicar in Tübingen and the surrounding area, at the same time repetition for the Tübingen Theologenkonvikt Wilhelmsstift .

Fries received his doctorate on the philosophy of religion by John Henry Newman and in 1946 became a lecturer at the Catholic-Theological Faculty of the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen . After his habilitation on the philosophy of religion of the present, he became professor of fundamental theology there in 1950 . In 1958 the University of Munich appointed him to its chair for fundamental Catholic theology. There he founded the Institute for Ecumenical Theology in 1964. In Wolfhart Pannenberg at the Evangelical Theological Faculty in Munich, which was established in 1967, he found a congenial interlocutor for scientific discussion as well as for training students in ecumenical questions.

After Fries had refused Cardinal Julius Döpfner's request to accompany him as a council theologian at the Second Vatican Council in 1963 , he was all the more committed to the reception, processing and implementation of the theological impulses and new beginnings decided there. He took an active part in setting the course at the Würzburg Synod of Dioceses in the Federal Republic of Germany (1971–1975); here above all in the decision on pastoral cooperation between the churches in the service of Christian unity.

The office memorandum of the Working Group of Ecumenical Institutes from 1973, which was triggered by Fries' preparatory work and which he co-signed , caused a stir and anger . After a comparative discussion of the theological understanding of ministry by the churches, it found “that nothing decisive theologically stands in the way of mutual recognition of ministries” and thus “a major obstacle for the communion of the Lord's Supper has been overcome”.

After his retirement in 1979, he continued the committed theological dialogue. Sustainable for ecumenical theology especially worked in 1982 together with Karl Rahner wrote book unification of the churches - a real possibility , an ecumenical manifesto which outlines a feasible way under certain conditions, such as the various churches without giving up their specific commitment to a church in reconciled diversity can. His essay Leiden an der Kirche , which appeared in Christ in the Present in 1989, received an extraordinary response . A reprint was requested again and again and finally distributed in an edition of more than 150,000 copies. On the basis of the article and the readers' votes received, Fries published a book of the same name in the same year, which also received a lot of attention.

In the parish of St. Philippus, Munich, he remained valued as a preacher and promoter of church music. Fries was buried in the family grave in the cemetery in Oedheim.

Cardinal Walter Kasper , his home bishop at the time, described him as “a bearer of hope for a future reconciled unity of the churches”. Kasper dedicated his Introduction to Faith (1972) to Fries and called him in the foreword a "teacher who introduced me to the richness of tension in a theology of the creative center early on".

His students include a. Karl-Ernst Apfelbacher , Franz Wolfinger , Johannes Bernard , Johannes Brosseder , Peter Neuner , Otto Hermann Pesch , Lorenz Wachinger , Jürgen Werbick and Hermann Wohlgschaft .

In 1987 Fries was made an honorary citizen of Oedheim.

Work and works

Heinrich Fries' bibliography shows around 60 books and more than 1200 articles from his pen. The book publications cover fundamental theology in all its breadth. Many of his works have been translated into various European languages. Heinrich Fries presented a summary of his theological reflection in his book Fundamentaltheologie (Graz 1985).

Fries wanted to make the results of his reflection on faith fruitful for all those who want to rationally answer their faith in the face of the questions of their time, who can no longer be satisfied with only traditional faith, for people for whom the church is sometimes more an annoyance than an aid to Represents faith. In addition to the specialist theologians, they were the main addressees of his theology. Numerous books by other publishers aimed at a wide audience contain articles or sermons by him. For him, the sermon was always the serious case of theology.

The central theme of Heinrich Fries is the question of a Christian faith that does not have to be borne as a weight, but gives people the opportunity to achieve their fullness of life.

A second major aspect is the shape and understanding of the church. Fries stood for a philanthropic church that was open to dialogue. His first book Die Kirche als Anwalt des Menschen (Stuttgart 1954) showed early on his leitmotif of a church that has to give people an answer in their hope, but also in their fear of the future.

In this context is also his best known concern, ecumenism, the unity of the Christian churches. Heinrich Fries suffered from the split in Christianity, felt it to be a scandal and at an early stage identified the ecumenical task as an urgent existential question for Christianity and the Church.

Fonts

  • Newman's philosophy of religion , Stuttgart 1948
  • The Catholic Philosophy of Religion of the Present. Max Scheler's influence on their forms and shapes , Heidelberg 1949.
  • Nihilism - The Danger of Our Time , Stuttgart 1949
  • Church as the advocate of man , Stuttgart 1954
  • Bultmann - Barth and Catholic Theology , Stuttgart 1955
  • Oral tradition , with Heinrich Bacht and Josef Rupert Geiselmann , Hueber-Verlag, Munich 1957
  • believe - know. Ways to find a solution to the problem , Berlin 1960
  • The conversation with the Protestant Christians , Stuttgart 1961
  • Handbook of basic theological concepts. 2 volumes, Munich 1962/63; (Editor)
  • Aspects of the Church , Stuttgart 1963
  • We and the others. Contributions to the topic: The Church in Conversation and Encounters , Stuttgart 1966
  • Faith challenged , Munich 1968
  • What does it mean to believe? Understanding of Faith in a Secularized World. Heinrich Fries answers Eberhard Simons , Düsseldorf 1969
  • I don't see any god. A dialogue between theology and natural science , (together with P. Glockmann), Munich 1970
  • Faith and Church as an Offer , Graz 1976
  • Ecumenism instead of denominations? The struggle of the church for unity , Frankfurt 1977
  • Unification of the Churches - Real Possibility. (with Karl Rahner ), Freiburg 1983
  • Fundamental theology , Styria Verlag, Graz 1985
    • for the GDR: Fundamental Theology, ed. v. G. Sterzinsky , Leipzig 1985
  • Farewell to God? , Freiburg 1968, 8th edition 1985, revised 1991
  • To make the world believe. Endangerment - Encouragement - Renewal , Frankfurt 1987
  • Experiences of Faith - Consequences of Faith , Graz - Vienna - Cologne 1989
  • Arguing for one church. (with Otto Hermann Pesch ), Munich 1987
  • Suffering from the Church , Freiburg - Basel - Vienna 1989
  • Hope remains. Church experiences , Zurich 1991
  • Before deciding: will the churches be superfluous? , Graz 1995

literature

  • Peter Neuner: Heinrich Fries. 1911-1998. A life in the service of ecumenism. Anton H. Konrad, Weißenhorn 1999.
  • Johannes Brosseder , Heinrich Fries (1911–1998) - The Church and the Churches , in: Hubert Brosseder (Ed.), Thinker in Faith. Theological trailblazer in the 21st century, Munich 2001, pp. 40–60.
  • Prof. Dr. Heinrich Fries . In: Thomas Seitz (Ed.): Oedheimer Hefte, No. 3 . 2nd Edition. Self-published by Thomas Seitz, Oedheim 2007.
  • Norbert Göttler , Heinrich Fries - Bridge Builders between Church and World , in: Stephan Pauly (Ed.), Theologen Our Time, Stuttgart 1997. (Article as special print 2007 edited by Peter Seitz, Catholic Dean's Office Heilbronn-Neckarsulm)
  • Felten, Engelbert, Fundamental Theology in Transition - The ecclesiology of the transcendental fundamental theology: Heinrich Fries , in: Engelbert Felten, The View of the Church, Trier 1996, pp. 4–128.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reform and recognition of church offices. A memorandum of the Association of Ecumenical University Institutes. Munich-Mainz 1973
  2. ^ Heinrich Fries: Suffering from the church . In: Christ in der Gegenwart , Vol. 41, No. 7 of February 12, 1989.
  3. ^ Josef Epping: Suffering from the Church 1989/2019 . In: Christ in der Gegenwart , Vol. 71, No. 3 from January 20, 2019.
  4. ↑ Press release of the Rottenburg diocese of November 26, 1998
  5. ↑ Mainz 1972. p. 11.
personal data
SURNAME Fries, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Roman Catholic theologian
DATE OF BIRTH December 31, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH November 19, 1998
Place of death Munich