Heinrich Suso Groner

Heinrich Suso Groner OCist (born December 14, 1895 in Tomerdingen ; † August 7, 1968 ) was a Cistercian and abbot of the private abbey Wettingen-Mehrerau .

Live and act

Groner was born as the son of Rößlewirt Josef Groner and his wife Anna. Linder was born in Tomerdingen near Ulm . His parents gave him the name Lorenz. He attended the boarding schools of the Benedictines in Maria Einsiedeln, the Cistercians in Bregenz-Mehrerau and the Jesuits in Feldkirch ( Stella Matutina college ), where he passed the school leaving examination in 1914. On September 21, 1915, he joined the Cistercian Abbey of Mehrerau near Bregenz as Brother Heinrich Suso . There he immediately began studying philosophy and theology. Shortly before the end of the First World War , on May 16, 1918, he was drafted into the Landsturm.

After the end of the war he studied mathematics and physics in Innsbruck, where he was ordained a priest at the Canisianum on March 21, 1920 and received his doctorate in philosophy on July 8, 1923 with a thesis on the internal friction of cylindrical air waves. At the same time he acquired the license to teach physical exercises at high schools. After completing his studies in Innsbruck , he returned to the convent and taught mathematics, physics and gymnastics at the private high school of the Cistercians, the Collegium Bernardi . When the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, the school was closed by the Gestapo and the monastery dissolved. The incumbent abbot, Kassian Haid , whose successor he became as coadiutor cum iure successionis in 1949, sent him to the Cistercian monastery in Baden-Baden-Lichtenthal , which he was in charge of until 1946. On October 2, 1949 Heinrich was ordained abbot by the Salzburg Prince Archbishop Andreas Rohracher with the help of Abbots Benno Gut (Einsiedeln) and Idesbald Eicheler (Marienstatt). True to his motto In caritate Dei et patientia Christi (“In the love of God and the patience of Christ”) he organized the new beginning after the war , taught at the reopened grammar school and participated as Abbas nullius (area abbot) at the Second Vatican Council in Rome.

After a serious illness, he died on August 7, 1968 and, at his own request, was not buried in the crypt of his monastery church, but in the monastery cemetery among his confreres.

literature

• Adalbert Roder: The path continues. In: Mehrerauer Grüße NF 1 (1954) p. 214ff.
• Columban Spahr: Abbot Dr. Heinrich Suso Groner in memory. In: Mehrerauer Grüße NF 30 (1969) pp. 4-14
• Franz Xaver Bishop: Groner, Heinrich Suso. In: Erwin Gatz (ed.), With the collaboration of Franz Xaver Bischof a. a .: The bishops of the German-speaking countries 1945 to 2001. A biographical lexicon. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-428-10684-9 , pp. 560-561.
• Kottmann, Anton; Hämmerle, Markus: The Cistercian Abbey Wettingen. - Baden, 1996 - pp. 374-379
• Hämmerle, Markus: Abbot Heinrich Suso Groner. A departure in tradition. In: Go the way today. 150 years of the Cistercians in Mehrerau (= Mehrerauer greetings NF 82) - Mehrerau 2004 p. 41ff.

Web links

• Entry to Heinrich Suso Groner on medal online
• Entry on catholic-hierarchy.org
• Heinrich Suso Groner in the Biographia Cisterciensis

predecessor	Office	successor
Kassian Haid	Abbot of Wettingen-Mehrerau 1949–1968	Kassian Lauterer
Kassian Haid	Abbot praeses of the Cistercian Congregation of Mehrerau 1949–1968	Kassian Lauterer