Johann Friedrich Oesterreicher

Bishop Johann Friedrich Oesterreicher, contemporary pastel painting by Johann Adam Hirschmann, around 1825, Eichstätt Bishop's House

Johann Friedrich Oesterreicher (born October 19, 1771 in Bamberg ; † January 31, 1835 ) was Bishop of Eichstätt from 1825 to 1835. He was also auxiliary bishop in Bamberg and from 1823 to 1825 titular bishop of Doryla ( Dorylaeum ).

education

Johann Friedrich was the youngest of 11 children of the Prince-Bishop's Chamber Council and Mayor Johann Konrad Oesterreicher and his wife Eva Elisabeth, born Ott. His nephew is the anatomist Johann Heinrich Oesterreicher . From 1786 he studied philosophy in Bamberg and received his doctorate in philosophy in 1790 . In the same year he became a cleric and canon at St. Gangolf's monastery in Bamberg. At the same time he studied theology and law as an alumnus of the Bamberg seminary . In 1793 he also received a benefit to St. Martin in Bamberg. He was ordained a priest on September 24, 1794 .

Activities in Bamberg

He then worked as a pastor in parishes in Bamberg and the surrounding area, but after just three years, in 1797, he became vicariate of the Bamberg diocese administration and at the same time consistorial councilor at the Bamberg marriage court . In 1798, the office of the Prince-Bishop of Bamberg was added to these offices. Even after the secularization of 1803, he retained his spiritual offices, although the state also showed interest in him. During the Bamberg vacancy from 1808 to 1818 he was one of the leading clergy in the diocese.

In 1821 Austria became the first cathedral chapter of the re-established Bamberg Metropolitan Chapter , director of the Archbishop's Ordinariate and Consistorial President. On November 17, 1823 he was appointed auxiliary bishop in Bamberg because Joseph Graf von Stubenberg , Bishop of Eichstätt and since 1821 Archbishop of Bamberg, remained in Eichstätt for health reasons (he was in a wheelchair). At the same time he was appointed titular bishop of Dorylaëum . He was consecrated as a bishop by Eichstätt Auxiliary Bishop Felix Graf von Stubenberg on December 28, 1823 in Eichstätt.

Bishop of Eichstätt

On May 12, 1825, at the request of the Eichstätter cathedral chapter, he was nominated by King Max. I Joseph as the 70th Bishop of Eichstätt as the successor to the surprisingly deceased Petrus Pustet . The translation took place on June 27th, the enthronement on November 9th, 1825. After the years in the diocese administration of Bamberg, he shifted the focus of his activities to pastoral care in Eichstätt: In the ten years of his reign in Eichstätt he undertook numerous visitation and confirmation trips , preached and often sat for confession and every year he addressed his diocesans with a pastoral letter. In 1826 he consecrated the Herz-Jesu-Kirche in Velburg . After the death of the Eichstatt auxiliary bishop, he took over the leadership of the clergy himself. In 1829 he achieved the reopening of the Franciscan convent Gnadenthal in Ingolstadt ; his efforts to revive theological studies in Eichstätt, however, were unsuccessful. On September 21, 1834 he consecrated the newly built St. Ulrich Church in Buchdorf ; He died four months later and was buried in Eichstätter Cathedral .

literature

• Johann Michael Frieß: Words at the funeral of His Episcopal Grace of the Most Revered Mr. Johann Friedrich Oesterreicher, Bishop of Eichstätt, spoken in the high cathedral church. Eichstätt 1835: Brönner. 14 pp.
• BR Voigt (Ed.): New Nekrolog der Deutschen . Volume 13. Weimar 1835. pp. 118-122
• Ernst Reiter: Oesterreicher, Johann Friedrich (1771-1835). In: 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. 541f.
• Klaus Kreitmeir: The bishops of Eichstätt. Eichstätt 1992: Verlag Kirchenzeitung. P. 91f.

Web links

• Entry on Johann Friedrich Oesterreicher on catholic-hierarchy.org
• Official series of bishops from Eichstätt

predecessor	Office	successor
Peter blows	Bishop of Eichstaett 1825 - 1835	Johann Martin Manl