Karl Heiller

Karl Heiller (also Carl , Hungarian Károly ; born February 11, 1811 in Preßburg , Kingdom of Hungary ; † March 24, 1889 ibid) was a Catholic pastor in Preßburg and a spiritual author.

Life

Karl Heiller was the son of a German family in Pressburg. His father was a shopkeeper in Pressburg. After graduating from grammar school in his hometown and passing the school leaving examination, he studied Catholic theology at the seminary in Tyrnau from 1828 . He was ordained a priest on February 25, 1834. He then worked as a chaplain in Mischdorf and then in his native town of Pressburg as a preacher in the Jesuit church. On July 17, 1849 he was appointed canon of St. Martin and pastor of Bratislava. He held this position for forty years.

Karl Heiller was the representative of Catholic Germanness in Pressburg. Primarily he tried to preserve the Catholic elementary school and to secure German cultural life in general. He was an energetic, versatile man who cared about his believers. He organized regular pilgrimages to the chapel in the Pressburger Tiefen Weg and to Mariazell . On his initiative, the cemetery church was built at the Pressburg Andreas cemetery in 1859 .

As the Bratislava city pastor, he endeavored to bring about peaceful coexistence between the various denominations of Bratislava, a sign of the earliest ecumenical movement.

Heiller was also an avid music lover. With all his strength he promoted the venerable St. Martin Church Music Association , founded in 1833 , which at that time enjoyed great national and international repute. Numerous world-class conductors have conducted this association.

Heiller made particular contributions to the regotization of St. Martin's Cathedral. This was in a poor structural condition around the middle of the 19th century. Renovation work was urgently needed. At the suggestion of Heiller, a provisional commission was founded in March 1863, the task of which was to found a cathedral building association. Heiller was entrusted with the procurement of the financial means. He managed to raise considerable funds for the regotization of the cathedral in a very short time. So the renovation work could begin, which lasted until 1879. On July 4, 1879, the Preßburger Zeitung put the restoration and regotization work at 132,892 guilders .

Heiller bust by Viktor Tilgner

In 1880 Emperor Franz Joseph I arranged for Heiller's elevation to titular bishop of Budua , but he never received episcopal ordination . He also received the Order of the Iron Crown, 2nd class , from the emperor . He also received a medal of commemoration and recognition from Pope Leo XIII.

Funerary inscription at the Andreas cemetery in Pressburg

Heiller's 50th jubilee as a priest in 1884 was celebrated with great public participation. Franz Liszt , a personal friend of Heiller, came to Pressburg for this anniversary and conducted his coronation mass in St. Martin's Cathedral. The sculptor Viktor Tilgner created a marble bust of Heiller on this occasion .

Karl Heiller died on a Sunday, March 24th, 1889, half an hour before midnight. In his will, he wished that he would be transferred to the Andreas cemetery in a simple wooden coffin and buried there in a simple grave. The funeral was to take place in the morning in silence and the blessing was to be performed by the youngest chaplain, to whom he left a guilder for this service. All he wanted was a simple tomb on which should be written: "I commend my immortal soul to the infinitely merciful God and I ask for the intercession of the Virgin Mary and all the angels and saints of heaven ..."

Karl Heiller owned a valuable art collection, which he bequeathed to the Museum of the City of Pressburg in his will .

Publications

Our Father in seven fasting sermons. Pressburg, 1841
Faith, Hope and Love. Pressburg, 1849
Sermon, on the annual Busz- und Bettage, in memory of the devastating fire, which on July 18th in 1800 in the Königigl. Free coronation city of Pressburg raging ... Pressburg, undated
Pilgrimage sermon on the occasion of the Bratislava votive procession to the place of grace Maria-Zell, held there on August 21, 1850 ... Pressburg, 1850
Sermon given on New Year's Eve 1850 in the Dome at St-Martin. Pressburg. 1851
Two sermons of fasting at Christmas and at the end of the year held in the Dome at St. Martin. Pressburg, 1852
Pilgrimage book for the use of the pious pilgrims to Maria-Zell in Styria. Collected from the most established Catholic writers. Pressburg, 1852 (2nd edition in Pressburg, 1858)
Sermon for the 200-year jubilee pilgrimage of the cath. Pressburg parish after the place of grace Maria-Zell. Held there on Aug. 21, 1852, Pressburg, 1852
Sermons on the six Sundays of Holy Lent in 1851 go to the Dome at St. Martin, Pressburg, 1852
Image of the Catholic priest in his effectiveness as a pastor. Sermon at the priest jubilee celebration of the Highly Born and Reverend Mr. Josef Freiherrn v. Metzburg, pastor in the Neustadt in Pressburg; Pressburg, 1853

literature

P. Rainer Rudolf, Eduard Ulreich: Karpatendeutsches Biographisches Lexikon. Working group of Carpathian Germans from Slovakia, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-927096-00-8 , p. 125.
Jozef Haľko, Štefan Komorný: Dóm - Katedrála svätého Martina v Bratislave, Bratislava 2010, ISBN 978-80-7114-805-0 .

Web links

Entry in the Magyar Katolikus Lexicon (Hungarian)

Individual evidence

↑ Barbara Groneweg: The beginnings of Edmund Steinacker's work in popular politics 1867-1892 (in 'Publications of the Südostinstitut München'), p. 20

^ Preßburger Zeitung of March 23, 1863

↑ Pressburger Zeitung of July 4, 1879, p. 2

↑ ^a ^b Haľko: Dóm ..., p. 12

^ Baron Joseph von Metzburg (1780-1857) was ordained a priest in 1803. First he worked as a chaplain in St. Anna's Church in Ofen and later at the Cathedral of St. Martin in Pressburg. On May 15, 1819 he was appointed parish priest of the Preßburger Blumenthaler church . At 38 years of age, his pastorate is the longest in the annals of the Blumenthal parish. (quoted from Anton Klipp: Preßburg - New Views on an Old City, Karlsruhe / Stuttgart 2010, p. 123)

personal data
SURNAME	Heiller, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Heiller, Carl; Heiller, Károly
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Catholic parish priest in Pressburg and spiritual author
DATE OF BIRTH	February 11, 1811
PLACE OF BIRTH	Pressburg , Kingdom of Hungary
DATE OF DEATH	March 24, 1889
Place of death	Pressburg , Kingdom of Hungary

[1] Barbara Groneweg: The beginnings of Edmund Steinacker's work in popular politics 1867-1892 (in 'Publications of the Südostinstitut München'), p. 20

[2] Preßburger Zeitung of March 23, 1863

[3] Pressburger Zeitung of July 4, 1879, p. 2

[:0-4] Haľko: Dóm ..., p. 12

[5] Baron Joseph von Metzburg (1780-1857) was ordained a priest in 1803. First he worked as a chaplain in St. Anna's Church in Ofen and later at the Cathedral of St. Martin in Pressburg. On May 15, 1819 he was appointed parish priest of the Preßburger Blumenthaler church . At 38 years of age, his pastorate is the longest in the annals of the Blumenthal parish. (quoted from Anton Klipp: Preßburg - New Views on an Old City, Karlsruhe / Stuttgart 2010, p. 123)