Ildephons Reuschel

Ildephons Reuschel SOCist (also Ildefons Reuschel ; full birth name: Franz Joseph Reuschel ; * November 6, 1742 in Oberzieder , Duchy of Schweidnitz ; † November 5, 1823 in Grüssau , Landkreis Landeshut ) was the last abbot of the Cistercian Abbey of Grüssau .

Life

Franz Joseph Reuschel came from a farming family from the Grüssau monastery country. As a choirboy of the monastery, Abbot Benedikt II. Seidel gave him a free place at the Grüssau Latin School , where he received several awards for good performance. Although he wanted to enter the monastery as a novice , he was initially denied entry, as the new sovereign, the Prussian King Friedrich II , to whom most of Silesia fell after the First Silesian War in 1742, forbade the monastery to accept novices would have. After twelve monks died of typhus in 1758 alone , Abbot Malachias Schönwiese secretly accepted three novices in 1764, despite the ban, including Reuschel, who was 22 at the time. As a monk, he received the name of St. Ildephons . On July 10, 1765, he took the religious vows and in 1770 he was ordained a priest . At first he was employed as a nurse, sacristan, kitchen master and librarian. Later he was active in pastoral care and was chaplain in Grüssau, Alt Reichenau and Schömberg , then pastor of Neuen and Alt Reichenau. There he was also responsible for the administration of the monastery property. Under Abbot Peter II Keylich he became his prior . Under his successor, Johannes VII. Langer , he was given the management of the extensive property of the Bolkenhain castle feud. During this time he lived in the Ruhbank castle , which belonged to the monastery.

After the death of Abbot Johannes VII Langer Ildephons Reuschel was from King Friedrich III. on March 4, 1800 confirmed as the 49th abbot of the Grüssau monastery. The Benediction was granted to him on October 5, 1800 by the auxiliary bishop of Wroclaw, Emanuel von Schimonsky . Ildephons Reuschel's tenure was heavily burdened by the Napoleonic Wars , which led to billeting, looting and confiscation. Up to 80 percent of the income had to be transferred to the state treasury. Nevertheless, he managed to expand the Progymnasium into a royal high school, for which he gave up to 35 free places to students in need every year. To alleviate the famine, he arranged for public meals for the poor. He canceled the debts of numerous small farmers whom the monastery had lent money. On November 23, 1810, the abbey was dissolved by the Prussian state in the course of secularization . Abbot Ildephons stayed with his former prior Eutychius Leistritz and two other monks in the deserted monastery. There he died on November 5, 1823. His body was buried in the monk's crypt in front of the high altar of the monastery church, which had been rededicated as a parish church in the course of secularization.

literature

• Nikolaus von Lutterotti : The last Cistercian abbot from Grüssau. In: From the unknown Grüssau. Grenzland-Verlag, Wolfenbüttel 1962, pp. 189-195.

Web links

• Secularization of the Grüssau monastery (with painting by the abbot Ildophons)

predecessor	Office	successor
John VII Langer	Abbot of Grüssau 1800–1823	---