Ildefons Pauler

Grand Master's coat of arms of the Teutonic Order

Ildefons Pauler OT (born November 9, 1903 in Hirschdorf , Austrian Silesia , † January 9, 1996 in Vienna ) was the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order between 1970 and 1988 . He is considered the founder and pioneer of church life in Burgwald .

Life

Ildefons Pauler, baptized Alois, entered the Teutonic Order in Troppau in 1927 and was ordained a priest in Innsbruck on July 26, 1931 after studying theology. During the Second World War he was employed as a Wehrmacht priest and, like many other Silesian German order priests, was expelled after the war. When he arrived in Germany, he tried to gather the scattered confreres and founded the German Brethren Province in Darmstadt, of which he was appointed first prior in 1948. At the same time, as pastor, he looked after several diaspora communities and built churches in Industriehof-Burgwald and Ernsthausen . In 1963 he moved to Frankfurt as pastor of the Sachsenhausen Commander-in-Law. In 1965 the provincial seat was also moved there.

On October 6, 1970, elected Grand Master at the General Chapter in Lana (South Tyrol) and nominated in Rome in 1971, he presided over the order for 18 years. During his term of office, the rules of the order were renewed according to the guidelines of the Second Vatican Council and their adaptation to the new canon law.

After his resignation in 1988 he lived first in Vienna, later in the nursing home of the Teutonic Sisters in Bad Alexandersbad . He is buried there too.

literature

• Gerhard Hanusch: Ildefons Pauler 1970–1988. In: Udo Arnold (ed.): The Grand Masters of the Teutonic Order 1190–1994. Marburg 1998, ISBN 3-7708-1104-6 , pp. 334-340
• Winfried Irgang: Freudenthal as rule of the Teutonic Order 1621-1725. Grand Master P. Ildefons Pauler OT on his 40th anniversary as a priest on July 26, 1971