Johannes Thomes

Johannes Thomes (born February 6, 1896 in Wahn auf dem Hümmling , today Emsland ; † November 4, 1955 in Osnabrück ) was a Roman Catholic priest and, as a researcher of house inscriptions, was a member of an important group of inscription researchers around the Freiburg church historian Johannes Vincke .

Stations of his work as a pastor

After attending grammar school in Meppen , Thomes began studying theology in Münster in 1914 , which he had to interrupt in 1917/18 due to the war. After completing his studies, he attended the Osnabrück seminary , where he was ordained a priest on February 19, 1921. From 1921 to 1926 he was chaplain in Eutin , the following year mission pastor in Ratzeburg . The following ten years (1927–1937) he worked as a chaplain in Gesmold , from 1937 to 1942 as a pastor in Voxtrup . From 1942 he was in Emden , where soon after the destruction of the local church he set up a cellar church: without a church, the horror and suffering caused by the destruction of the war could not be endured. From 1952 he worked as a pilgrimage chaplain in Rulle until his death in 1955.

Already at the beginning of his pastoral work, Johannes Thomes was employed in pastoral care in areas with an evangelical majority population, which suggests a solid personality of the young priest, who did not allow himself to be discouraged by the difficult situation on site, but was eager to courageously “start a new one Catholic rice ”- even if it is always based on theological and pastoral discussion of the (architectural) history of important church buildings. His deep roots in Roman Catholicism drew the attention of the Gestapo to the young vicar as early as the mid-1930s , who was not deterred by this and was able to criticize the rule and the self-image of National Socialism again and again in his writings. So too, as in Emden, where he had been the pastor in St. Michael since 1942. The importance that the Christian faith had for him reflects his characterization of the situation after the complete destruction of the inner city of Emden, all the churches in the city, the sister house, the chaplain and the school house: “We were without a church. The destruction was terrible. The suffering in us was indescribably great. We couldn't wear it without a church. "

The business cellar of a local wine shop was therefore quickly converted into a cellar church, and from February 1946 a barrack was converted into a makeshift church. But his real goal was to rebuild the destroyed St. Michaelskirche, for which he advertised and carried out collections - e.g. As well as by, he asked for the roof tiles on 16 December 1950 by the Osnabrücker Archbishop William Berning inaugurated St. Michael Church to 'donate'. Since Catholic schools represented an important means of religious education for Thomes (with a view to the Nazi experience, it was certainly also meant to be critical of the state), he campaigned for the rapid reintroduction of the Catholic denominational school in Emden - a difficult undertaking, even if he was aware of parenthood knew behind him. In voluntary community work of considerable size, bricks had to be removed from the rubble in order to transform the sacristy of the burned down Michael’s Church and two other partially destroyed parts of the building into classrooms. From February 1948, 140 pupils attended this Emden confessional school, which could only be a temporary measure due to the structural substance - again, considerable commitment (also on the part of parents) was necessary to start the renovation of an old warehouse, in which from the 1st June 1953 the new seven-grade school was accommodated, it is today's music school. In lectures and smaller publications, Johannes Thomes repeatedly dealt with the social upheavals triggered by the Nazi regime and the Second World War from a decidedly Christian perspective, which he understood as an expression of a crisis of the religious.

Military governor Major Newroth appointed him on December 7, 1945 in "Appointed City Council" Emden.

House inscription research

After nearly twenty years of collecting, evaluating and categorizing house inscriptions, Johannes Thomes began working in close coordination with the 'spiritus rector' of the Vincke House Inscription Circle to work out manuscripts for a planned dissertation on the "church-historical statements of house inscriptions in the Osnabrück region" - the first meticulously prepared Evaluation and evaluation of house sayings and inscriptions, which were preceded by thorough field studies. The systematic evaluation of a comparatively large number of inscriptions according to scientifically relevant analysis criteria was fundamental.

literature

• 'Consumed early': Johannes Thomes and his important collection of inscriptions from the Osnabrück region. In: Heimat-Jahrbuch Osnabrücker Land 2016, pp. 162–171
• Theodor Tebbe: The Vincke house inscription circle. Life and work of Johannes Vincke, Johannes Thomes, Anton Tumbrägel and Joachim Widera. Dinklage 2015 ISBN 978-3-000-49296-9 .
• Johannes Thomes: Church-historical statements of the house inscriptions of the Osnabrück country. Typescripts and documents for the lost “doctoral thesis” (edited by Theodor Tebbe). Dinklage 2015 ISBN 978-3-000-49746-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. http://www.wahn-use-olde-heimat.de
2. ↑ quoted from Tebbe 2015, p. 37
3. ↑ Tebbe 2015, p. 34f
4. ↑ cf. Tebbe 2015, pp. 35–38, there also the reprint of the Thomes article on ' Labor Day ', where it says: “A dark shadow came”, which slaves “over the work of human hands” if it does not succeed in reorienting the “new” work ethic according to the Benedictine “ora et labora” in the light of Christian “redemption”
5. ^ Johannes Thomes: Festschrift on the occasion of the solemn consecration of the newly built St. Michaelskirche in Emden. North / East Frisia 1950.
6. ↑ Tebbe 2015, p. 39ff
7. ↑ Tebbe 2015, p. 42
8. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. and: Archive link ( Memento of the original from February 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   
9. ↑ for more details on this Tebbe 2015, p. 44ff