Joachim Vobbe

Joachim Vobbe (right) in the election of his successor Matthias Ring as bishop of the Old Catholics in Germany

Joachim Vobbe (born January 5, 1947 in Honnef ; † July 26, 2017 in Königswinter ) was the ninth bishop of the Old Catholic Church in Germany from 1995 until the consecration of his successor Matthias Ring on March 20, 2010 .

Life

After attending the state old-language St. Michael High School in Bad Münstereifel (1957–1966), Joachim Vobbe studied theology in Bonn, Münster and Cologne. He was ordained a priest on June 14, 1972 in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cologne .

After years of chaplaincy in the Roman Catholic parishes of St. Mary's Assumption in Cologne- Holweide and St. Mary's Assumption in Düsseldorf-Unterbach , he converted to the Catholic Diocese of Old Catholics in Germany in 1977 . Here he worked as vicar and pastor in Blumberg and the Randen parishes ( Baden-Württemberg ) until 1982 , then as pastor in Offenbach am Main for 13 years , and from 1985 until his election as bishop at the same time as dean of Hesse .

On November 15, 1994 he was elected to the office of bishop by the 52nd Ordinary Synod of the Diocese in the St. Florins Church in Koblenz as successor to Sigisbert Kraft and consecrated as a bishop on March 25, 1995 in the Dreikönigskirche in Frankfurt am Main . Since his retirement he lived in Königswinter.

From 1997 to 2002 and from 2005 until his death Joachim Vobbe represented the International Old Catholic Bishops' Conference (IBK) at the Anglican Church Fellowship . From 2002 to 2010 he was a member of the “office” (a kind of board of directors) of the IBK as quaestor . From 1997 he was entrusted as a delegate of the IBK with episcopal responsibility for the Italian Old Catholics. He resigned this office in 2006 to the then Swiss Bishop Fritz-René Müller . Between 2004 and 2009 Vobbe headed the group of Old Catholic delegates of the Preparatory Commission for the continuation of the Orthodox / Old Catholic dialogue.

Joachim Vobbe has been Honorary Assistant Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe since 1999 and of the Convocation of American Episcopal Churches in Europe since 2002.

He was married and had two sons.

One of the important decisions of his ministry as bishop was the implementation of the priestly ordination for women decided by several previous synods . On Whit Monday 1996 he ordained the first two women to be priestesses in Constance .

From 1995 to 2004 Joachim Vobbe invited theologians and laypeople from his diocese and the ecumenical community to so-called “herd letter days”, a week-long brainstorming session , from which a thematic episcopal letter with added working materials was created. One letter is dedicated to the ordination of women (“Go to my brothers”), one at the turn of the millennium (“A thousand years like a day”), the other to the seven sacraments (“Being a child - becoming a child” ( baptism ), “Citizenship Spirit-Kingdom” "( Confirmation )," Meal of divine future "( Eucharist )," Reversed "( repentance )," From official ways "( ordination )," God trusts us, we trust God "( marriage )," Not hopelessly ill “( Anointing of the Sick ).

As part of a general pastoral conference of the Old Catholic clergy, he announced in June 2009 that he would resign from the leadership of the diocese for health reasons. On November 7, 2009, Matthias Ring was elected as his successor at an extraordinary bishopric synod in Mannheim . The episcopal ordination of the tenth bishop of the Old Catholic Church in Germany took place on March 20, 2010 in the Evangelical City Church in Karlsruhe .

Works

• Offenbach - the oldest old Catholic parish in Hesse . Offenbach 1985.
• Catholic - an old word seen again . Lecture on the 125th anniversary of the old Catholic community of Kempten i. A., Kempten 1998.
• " Lady's Speech " . In: Christine Busch, Brigitte Vielhaus (ed.): Church will be different. Ecumenical Decade “Solidarity of the Churches with Women 1988–1998” . Düsseldorf 1998, pp. 127-134.
• Inside the church. Thoughts on an old Catholic spirituality . In: Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift 92, Bern 2002, pp. 270–285.
• Consensus, Synodality and Ecumenism. The reawakening of a church reform idea from St. Florin and its prominent representatives in and around Koblenz at the beginning of the old Catholic movement. In: Markus Dröge u. a. (Ed.): Pragmatic, Prussian, Protestant ... The Protestant parish of Koblenz in the field of tension between Rhenish Catholicism and Prussian church politics . Series of publications by the Association for Rhenish Church History 161, Bonn 2003, pp. 157–180.
• Theodor Stumpf - a Cusanus admirer at the cradle of the old Catholic synodal and community order . In: Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift 93, Bern 2003, pp. 65–82.
• Bread from the stone valley. Episcopal letters from 1996-2004 . Bonn 2005.
• The translation of the Eucharist according to the Traditio Apostolica - a key for ecumenical progress? In: Celebrating worship - daring hospitality. A celebration for Meinold Krauss . o. O. o. J. [Darmstadt 2007], pp. 235-251.
• The Isenheim Altarpiece - masterpiece by a Protestant Catholic . Bonn 2009.
• Someone's singing, Lord - Gospels and Spirituals . CD, Königswinter 2010, with the participation of "Take That Jazz" and "5 4 U".

Collaboration on various liturgical books and prayer and hymn books

• I'm looking for your face. Prayer book of the Catholic Diocese of Old Catholics . Bonn 1985.
• The celebration of the Eucharist. Altar book for the celebration of the liturgy . Bonn 1995, 3rd improved and expanded edition Bonn 2006.
• In tune . Hymnal of the Catholic Diocese of Old Catholics. Bonn 2003.
• God time . Prayer book of the Catholic Diocese of Old Catholics. Bonn 2008

For Joachim Vobbe's 60th birthday in 2007, a commemorative publication was published, edited by Angela Berlis and Matthias Ring : Casting Anchor in Heaven. Conjectures about Church in the Future . Alt-Katholischer Bistumsverlag, Bonn 2007; u. a. With contributions from Archbishop Rowan Williams , Canterbury, the then EKD Council Chairman and Berlin Bishop Wolfgang Huber , the Rhenish President and later EKD Council Chairman Nikolaus Schneider , Regional Bishop Ulrich Fischer (Badische Landeskirche) and many other well-known authors.

Web links

• Literature by and about Joachim Vobbe in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography of Joachim Vobbe

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Old Catholics mourn the loss of Old Bishop Joachim Vobbe. Old Catholic Church in Germany , July 26, 2017, accessed on July 26, 2017 (message on the official website of the Catholic Diocese of Old Catholics in Germany). 
2. ↑ Press release of the Old Catholic Church of June 23, 2009: Bishop Vobbe announces resignation ( Memento of August 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive )

predecessor	Office	successor
Sigisbert Kraft	German old Catholic bishop 1995–2010	Matthias Ring