Laurentius Klein

Laurentius Klein OSB (born March 8, 1928 in Engers as Werner Klein ; † July 29, 2002 in Trier ) was a German Benedictine abbot of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Matthias , abbot administrator of the Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion in Jerusalem and long-term dean of studies of the Jerusalem Theological Academic Year .

Life

Werner Klein was born near Koblenz in 1928. In 1947 he entered the Benedictine Abbey of St. Matthias , where he made his profession on January 23, 1949 . He then studied ecumenical theology . He was ordained a priest on August 2, 1953. On May 31, 1958 , he received his doctorate at the theological faculty of the University of Trier with a thesis on Evangelical Lutheran confession.

During the Second Vatican Council he worked with the Curia Cardinal Augustin Bea ( SJ ). In 1963 he was elected the youngest abbot of a German monastery at the time. He headed the Benedictine Abbey of St. Matthias until 1969 when, at the request of the Vatican, he took over the management of the Dormition Abbey as abbot administrator. He worked there until 1979. Laurentius Klein rendered outstanding services to both the ecumenical dialogue between the Christian churches and the Abrahamic ecumenism between the three Abrahamic world religions Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In 1973 he founded the ecumenical theological academic year Jerusalem , which gives students of Catholic and Protestant theology the opportunity to study for two semesters in the Holy Land after passing the intermediate examination. In 1981 he returned to Germany and headed the Ecumenical Center of the Working Group of Christian Churches in Germany in Frankfurt. From 1987 to 1998 he was again Dean of Studies for the theological academic year he founded . In 1998 he had to leave the Dormition Abbey due to illness and returned to Trier, where he died in 2002.

Appreciations

• 1975: Buber-Rosenzweig Medal for efforts to promote Christian-Jewish dialogue.
• 1977: Honorary doctorate from the Department of Catholic Theology at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen .
• 1989: Honorary doctorate from the Catholic Theological Faculty of the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster .

Festschriften dedicated to Laurentius Klein

• Dormition Abbey Jerusalem (ed.): Festschrift of the theological academic year of Dormition Abbey Jerusalem for Laurentius Klein . EOS-Verlag, St. Ottilien 1986, ISBN 3-88096-486-6 .
• Ferdinand Hahn , Frank-Lothar Hossfeld , Hans Jorissen , Angelika Neuwirth (eds.): Zion - place of encounter. Festschrift for Laurentius Klein on the completion of the 65th year of life. Athenaeum Hain Hanstein, Bodenheim 1993, ISBN 3-8257-9153-X .

photos

• Benedictine P. Laurentius Klein (1928-2002) on http://www.studienjahr.de .
• Benedictine P. Laurentius Klein (1928-2002) on http://www.dormitio.net/ .

Web links

• Entry on Laurentius Klein on medal online (main source of this post)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Laurentius Klein: Evangelical Lutheran Confession: Doctrine and Practice. Verl. Bonifacius-Dr., Paderborn 1961, plus dissertation from the Theological Faculty of the University of Trier, 1958.
2. ↑ Ecumenical Central . Retrieved March 14, 2016.
3. ↑ Klein, Laurentius on "Orden Online" . Retrieved March 14, 2016.

predecessor	Office	successor
Eucharius Zenzen	Abbot of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Matthias 1963–1969	Athanasius Polag