Johannes Ibach

Johannes Ibach, collotype from: "The Catholic Church in Germany, represented by its spokesmen", Würzburg 1878.

Johannes Ibach's main literary work, his monumental church history

Johannes Ibach, photo, 1869

Johannes Ibach (born August 30, 1825 in Frankfurt am Main ; † February 2, 1908 in Villmar ) was a Catholic priest, Limburg canon, 1873-1880 center member in the Prussian House of Representatives, Catholic historian, journalist and book author.

Life

Johannes Ibach was born in Frankfurt am Main as the son of the master book printer Franz Nikolaus Ibach and his wife Franziska Ibach. After attending high school in his hometown, the young man studied in Tübingen , Würzburg , Freiburg and Munich . This was followed by a year in the Limburg an der Lahn seminary before he was ordained a priest on August 21, 1850 by his friend and sponsor, Bishop Peter Josef Blum . This first made him his local chaplain, then in 1852 Ibach was promoted to the second Limburg cathedral vicar and ordinariate secretary. He remained in this position until 1858. In that year he and other priests at Marienthal in the Rheingau founded a "vita communis" according to the rule of Bartholomäus Holzhauser , but was called back by the bishop after the Nassau state government dissolved the community and its members of the state wanted to refer. Blum initially sent Ibach on a journey and appointed him parish administrator of Limburg in the fall of 1861, and on May 21, 1862, titular pastor there. He could not be installed as a regular pastor because the government did not want him in this important post. Johannes Ibach gained national fame because he distinguished himself as a writer, became diocesan president of all Catholic journeyman's associations in the Limburg diocese and in this capacity appeared for the first time as an association speaker at the Trier Catholic Day in 1865. There he met the journeyman's father Adolph Kolping , who was also present . Ibach also acted as a speaker at other Catholic Days (Mainz 1871, Aachen 1879, Bonn 1881, Düsseldorf 1883). He initiated the construction of the southern transept towers of Limburg Cathedral , his parish church, between 1863 and 1865.

Johannes Ibach was on the list of nominations for Limburg canon in 1869, but was rejected by the Prussian government as "persona minus grata". Bishop Blum then transferred the parish of Villmar near Limburg to the priest on October 1, 1869, in which he worked until his death. He fertilized parish life, founded several brotherhoods, led two restorations of the parish church (1870 and 1898), took care of the new construction of the cemetery (1870), the construction of the Loreto chapel (1876), the reconstruction of the church tower, which was burned down by lightning strike (1884 / 85), the new organ (1886), the construction of the new rectory (1890) and the construction of the sister house (1903/04). Through Ibach's mediation, the King Konrad monument was also erected on the Bodenstein near Villmar in 1894. On November 11, 1886, he was appointed dean of the Limburg regional chapter; he resigned as such on February 9, 1904. After his first trip to Rome in 1871, Johannes Ibach was sent again to Rome by Bishop Karl Klein in 1887 and brought Pope Leo XIII. 11,000 marks as a gift from the diocese on the occasion of its golden jubilee as a priest.

On November 4, 1873, Johannes Ibach was elected to the Prussian House of Representatives as a center member for the Daun-Prüm-Bitburg constituency. He held this mandate until October 1880. During the Kulturkampf he wrote several writings that represented positions of the Catholic Church. On May 17, 1888, Johannes Ibach was appointed papal chamberlain ( monsignor ) and awarded the order Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice . Because of the relaxed political situation, he was finally elected canon of Limburg. On the occasion of his golden jubilee as a priest in 1900, he was honored by the state with the Order of the Red Eagle, IV class. Ibach died on February 2, 1908 and found his final resting place on the south side of the Villmar parish church.

Johannes Ibach became known throughout the German-speaking region for his one-volume church history, “The History of the Church of Christ” , which was published in several editions between 1899 and 1919 by Benziger Verlag Einsiedeln . It is still widely used as an antiquarian and offers rich source and image material on around 1000 large-format pages, with 48 color plates and over 560 text images. The work was inspired by Ibach's friend Johannes Janssen .

Fonts

• The history of the Church of Christ . Benziger, Einsiedeln, 1899 (main work).
• Limburg Cathedral . In: Franz Bock (Hrsg.): Rhineland's architectural monuments of the Middle Ages , vol. 2. Cologne and Neuss 1868.
• The struggle of the modern state against the church and its goal. Illuminated in letters to a Prussian member of the state parliament . Frankfurt am Main 1873.
• The civil war before the judgment seat of its own laws . Brück, Luxembourg 1877.
• Socialism in the age of the Reformation . In: Frankfurt contemporary brochures , New Series, Vol. 1, Frankfurt am Main 1880.
• The life of the holy virgin Elisabeth von Schönau . Limburg 1898.

literature

• Klaus Schatz : History of the Diocese of Limburg . Society for Middle Rhine Church History, Mainz 1983;
• Bernhard Hemmerle: Johannes Ibach . In: In the service of the Church. Contributions to the history of the Villmar parish (= Villmarer Hefte, No. 3). Villmar 1988.
• Armin Kuhnigk: The Limburg and Villmar pastor Johannes Ibach (1825–1908) in Kulturkampf and Association Catholicism (= series of publications on the history and culture of the Limburg-Weilburg district, vol. 4). District of Limburg-Weilburg, Limburg 1993.
• Bernhard Hemmerle :  Johannes Ibach. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 23, Bautz, Nordhausen 2004, ISBN 3-88309-155-3 , Sp. 697-700.