Henri Werling

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Henri (also Heinrich) Werling (born December 14, 1879 in Luxembourg City , † February 22, 1961 in Esna ( Estonian SSR , Kareda parish )) was a Jesuit , pastor and apostolic administrator ad interim for Estonia.

Henri Werling, ordained a priest on August 25, 1912, came to Estonia in 1923. The Roman Catholic Church there consisted of only two parishes in Tallinn (Reval) and Tartu (Dorpat), which, despite Estonia's independence, belonged to the Latvian Archdiocese of Riga . The then Apostolic Delegate for Estonia, Archbishop Antonino Zecchini SJ, restructured pastoral care with regard to the establishment of an Apostolic Administration for Estonia and appointed Henri Werling as pastor in Tartu. There he developed a beneficial activity, which led to a steadily growing and appreciative equality of the Catholic Church in Estonia. On February 13, 1928, Henri Werling published Säravad Tähed (English: Shining Stars ) for the first time, a Catholic magazine in Estonian.

After Eduard Profittlich SJ, previously pastor in Tallinn, was appointed the new Apostolic Administrator for Estonia on May 13, 1931, Henri Werling took over the parish of St. Peter and Paul in the capital, where he also showed a great deal of commitment. The Estonian public began to be more and more interested in the Catholic Church, and especially religious services with their sermons in Estonian were also popular with people of different faiths.

After further years of fruitful work in Estonia, as a result of the Hitler-Stalin Pact in September 1939, the work of the Catholic Church was massively narrowed, with the forcible annexation of Estonia by the Soviet Union on June 17, 1940, finally, the Soviet religious laws asserted and enforced with administrative coercive measures. The Holy See assessed the danger for the Apostolic Administrator Eduard Profittlich, who has meanwhile been ordained Archbishop, so high that on January 14, 1941 he appointed Henri Werling as Apostolic Administrator for Estonia ad interim in the event that the legitimate shepherd no longer exercise his office can. When this case finally occurred with the arrest of the Archbishop on June 27, 1941, Henri Werling took over jurisdiction over the Apostolic Administration .

On August 15, 1945, Henri Werling himself was deported in the course of the Soviet annexation of Estonia, whereby the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Estonia was interrupted, which was to last until April 15, 1992. It was only at this point in time that Archbishop Justo Mullor García could again be appointed an Apostolic Administrator.

It was not until 1954 that Henri Werling was able to return to Estonia from the place of his imprisonment under strict conditions and the prohibition of exercising his priestly functions. He now took up residence in Esna, where he lived with a brother from the Society of Jesus . In the thawing period under Nikita Khrushchev , he was allowed to work as a priest again, which he was happy to do as long as his poor health allowed him from his long imprisonment.

Henri Werling died on February 22, 1961 in Esna. At this point in time he could not have known that Archbishop Eduard Profittlich , who had been abducted to Kirov , had died exactly 19 years earlier to the day. Henri Werling's grave is in the Liiva Cemetery in Tallinn.