Ignaz Bernhard Mauermann

Ignaz Bernhard Mauermann (1786–1841)

The Dresden court church during the time of Mauermann, drawing: Gottlob Friedrich Thormeyer

Ignaz Bernhard Mauermann (born February 2, 1786 in Neuzelle (Niederlausitz), † September 14, 1841 in Schirgiswalde ) was a Roman Catholic bishop. From 1819 until his death he was apostolic vicar in the Saxon hereditary lands , from 1831 also cathedral dean in Bautzen and apostolic prefect in Upper Lusatia . The Catholic diaspora church in Saxony was consolidated under Mauermann's leadership . New parishes and Catholic schools were established in several cities.

Life

Ignaz Mauermann first attended the Neuzelle Abbey Latin school . He entered the Neuzelle monastery and was given the religious name Bernhard. Then he went to study theology in Prague, where he lived like many Lusatian priestly candidates in the Wendish seminary . In 1807 he worked for a short time as a school principal and catechist in Aussig in northern Bohemia . After completing his theological studies at the Leitmeritz seminary, he was ordained a priest there in August 1808. Mauermann remained in the service of the Leitmeritz diocese for a few years . When he was offered the position of director of the small Catholic school in Leipzig in 1814, he returned to Saxony. In the following year he was appointed school director in Dresden and at the same time court chaplain and confessor of the royal family. He taught, among others, the princes Friedrich August and Johann , who later both became kings of Saxony.

On March 24, 1819, Mauermann was elected a member of the Bautzen Cathedral Chapter and was appointed Apostolic Vicar of Saxony and Titular Bishop of Pella by Pope Pius VII . He received his episcopal ordination on July 11th of the same year in the Dresden court church from Bishop Lock . After Lock's death, Mauermann was also elected dean of the Bautzen chapter on November 9, 1831. He was automatically the episcopal administrator in Lusatia and thus united the two highest Catholic ecclesiastical dignities of Saxony in his person. For the cathedral chapter of St. Petri he was now also a member of the first chamber of the Saxon state parliament .

As head of the two Saxon jurisdictions, Mauermann successfully endeavored to expand pastoral care. He founded Catholic parishes and schools in Pirna , Chemnitz and Zwickau - partly with the support of the royal family . For the scattered Catholics of Saxony, he introduced so-called missionary services. In 1837 Mauermann bought the Wilthen manor for the Bautzen Cathedral Monastery . A new Catholic community with its own school was soon established there too. Mauermann's self-confident and successful action for the interests of the Saxon Catholics was viewed very critically by some Protestants in the home country of the Reformation.

During Mauermann's term of office, the reorganization of ecclesiastical jurisdiction for the Catholics of the Saxon hereditary lands also fell. A Catholic consistory was established as the first instance by royal mandate in 1827. The already existing court, presided over by the Vicar Apostolic, was given two additional assessors and was now the higher instance.

Bishop Mauermann died in Schirgiswalde in 1841. He was buried in Bautzen in the Nikolaikirchhof . The bishop had used his estate to build a church in Annaberg in the Ore Mountains. His brother Franz Laurenz Mauermann succeeded him in the office of Apostolic Vicar, but the Sorbian priest Matthäus Kutschank became Cathedral Dean of St. Petri.

literature

• Anton Weis:  Mauermann, Ignaz Bernhard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1884, p. 688 f.
• Heinrich Meier: The Apostolic Vicariate in the Saxon Hereditary Lands (= studies on the Catholic diocese and monastery history 24). Leipzig 1981.
• Erwin Gatz (ed.): The bishops of the German-speaking countries 1785/1803 to 1945. A biographical lexicon. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-428-05447-4 , pp. 487-488.
• Friedrich August Forwerk: History and description of the Königl. Catholic court and parish church in Dresden. In addition to a short history of the Catholic Church in Saxony from the change of religion of Elector Friedrich August I to our day. Dresden 1851, pp. 167-177.

Web links

• Entry on Ignaz Bernhard Mauermann on catholic-hierarchy.org (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wilhelm Traugott Krug: The spiritual activities and encroachments in the kingdom of Saxony and in its neighborhood. In: Minerva 1826, T. 3, pp. 145-192

predecessor	Office	successor
Franz Georg Lock	Apostolic Prefect of Upper Lusatia (for Meissen's former diocesan area there) 1831–1841	Matthew Kutschank
Franz Laurenz Mauermann	Apostolic Vicar in the Saxon Hereditary Lands 1819–1841	Ludwig Forwerk