Matthias Ehrenfried

Matthias Ehrenfried, Bishop of Würzburg in 1935

Matthias Ehrenfried (born August 3, 1871 in Absberg ; † May 30, 1948 in Rimpar ) was a German clergyman and Roman Catholic bishop of the Würzburg diocese from 1924 to 1948. He was known as the " bishop of resistance" against the Nazi regime .

Origin and career

Ehrenfried was born into a Middle Franconian farming family in Absberg near Ellingen in what is now the Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen district in the diocese of Eichstätt in 1871 and had eleven siblings. In 1892 he made his Abitur at the Eichstätter Humanist Gymnasium , where he was top of the class in all subjects. On the initiative of Bishop Franz Leopold von Leonrod , he was able to study theology at the Jesuit-led seminarium Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and obtain a doctorate in philosophy and theology as well as a bachelor's degree in canon law. In 1898 he was ordained a priest in Rome. His first pastoral activity took him to Hilpoltstein in his home diocese of Eichstätt. In 1900 he received a teaching position for dogmatics at the Lyceum in Eichstätt , today's Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt , in 1906 he became a full professor for the New Testament and Apologetics and later also for homiletics at the Philosophical-Theological University .

Ehrenfried had been a member of the Catholic student corporation Academia Eichstätt since 1901, later KStV Rheno-Frankonia in the KV , as well as the Catholic student associations KDStV Franco-Raetia Würzburg , KDStV Gothia Würzburg and KDStV Markomannia Würzburg in the Cartell Association (CV) .

During his time as a university lecturer, he preached on a temporary basis in many parishes, held popular missions and edited The Christian School and other magazines.

Bishop of Würzburg

On October 1, 1924 Ehrenfried was made by Pope Pius XI. appointed Bishop of Würzburg and on December 1st he was consecrated in Würzburg Cathedral. As Bishop of Würzburg, he moved into the former canon court of Conti as his apartment and official residence .

Expansion of the diocese

During his term of office, around 100 churches were built or expanded in the diocese of Würzburg , the pastoral care of the constantly growing city expanded and around 1,000 priests were ordained. The churches he consecrated include the monastery church of Mariannhill (1929), the church of Our Lady in Frauenland in 1937 and the Zellerau Church of the Holy Cross in 1935 . To deepen the faith of priests and believers, he had the retreat house built in the Himmelspforten monastery in 1926 . On April 12, 1931, he convened a diocesan synod , which in addition to the future of the denominational school, among other things, the realization of the by Pope Pius XI. justified Catholic action on the topic. His concern for unemployment and preoccupation with the social question is shown by his pastoral letter from 1931, which deals with the workers question in the light of Christianity .

Resistance to National Socialism in the Diocese of Würzburg

Depiction of the bishop on his epitaph in the Würzburg Cathedral

Ehrenfried was a staunch opponent of the National Socialists , who also openly expressed criticism. With the seizure of power in 1933, tensions between the church and the National Socialists began in the diocese of Würzburg . The first priests were taken into protective custody as recently as 1933 , and especially people of the SA , some of them disguised as civilians, used publicity campaigns for years to raise the mood against the bishop, who also made statements against National Socialism after the seizure of power. In 1934 Georg Heim went into hiding in Sankt Ludwig . In April 1934 the bishop's palace was attacked twice (the NSDAP also organized a demonstration in front of the palace on March 3, 1938). When the rector Johannes Reinmöller closed the Catholic Theological Faculty on November 15, 1935, Ehrenfried protested. Among his supporters was the cathedral pastor Heinrich Leier (1876-1948), who was the editor of the Franconian Volksblatt (published by Echter-Verlag ) and was also an opponent of the National Socialists and was in so-called protective custody in 1933. The bishop himself took a public position, e.g. B. in correspondence with the Berlin head of the Catholic-theological Reichsfachschaft Karlheinz Goldmann and in several pastoral letters from 1937 to 1939. In the following years the pressure of the National Socialists increased, in particular from the Gauleiter Otto Hellmuth , who referred to him as a "troublemaker" . They also recorded the bishop's sermons in shorthand and, above all, made use of the judiciary to further restrict priests in their rights, ranging from school bans, bans on speaking to prison sentences. Despite all the obstacles, the Catholic Church of Würzburg under Ehrenfried could not be ousted from public life and in 1936 even achieved a revival and reorganization of the Kiliansoktav and the Kilians pilgrimage.

In the monastery tower in 1941, the SD and the Gestapo found allegedly anti-subversive writings in the Münsterschwarzach Abbey , which provided the desired reason for the monastery to be closed. The closure sparked protest demonstrations among the population. Many priests paid for their resistance to the totalitarian state apparatus and the like. a. in the Dachau concentration camp with their lives.

However, in 1939 Ehrenfried also commented on the war with the following words:

“It urges me to call you to trust in God and to devoted loyalty to the fatherland. The soldiers willingly fulfill their duty towards the Führer and the Fatherland with the commitment of their whole personality in accordance with the admonitions of the Holy Scriptures. May they go out into the field trusting God and our Savior Jesus Christ. "

- Lukas Mihr : Church at war

Post-war period, end of life and honors

Ehrenfried wrote his first "free" pastoral letter since 1933 on May 13, 1945 as pastoral letter of the new times , in which he expressed his will to participate in the reconstruction of the bombing raid in March 1945 (after which the cathedral chapter was initially accepted in the mother house of the Oberzell sisters ) formulated the largely destroyed city of Würzburg, similar to a sermon he addressed to the population of Würzburg on May 20th. In a pastoral word for the refugees and Caritas on September 8, 1946, he called for help for refugees, resettled, bombed-out and poor people. He also exerted his influence on the American military government in order to support church institutions, schools, the university and the population.

On May 30, 1948, the bishop died in Rimpar in the makeshift hospital of the outsourced Juliusspital . His body was transferred to Würzburg and after a large funeral procession led by Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber and starting from the Hofkirche on June 3rd, as the Würzburg Cathedral was still ruined, he found his final resting place in the Neumünster Crypt (the "Kilians Crypt" of the Kollegiatstifts Neumünster ), near the bones of the Franconian apostles he venerated .

In a letter dated June 3, 1948, David Rosenbaum , the chairman of the Israelite Congregation in Würzburg, expressed his condolences to the cathedral chapter and, in his honorary peace, also expressed gratitude for the condemnation of the desecration of Israelite cemeteries, which was expressed "while still in the sick bed".

In Würzburg there is a street (south of the Keesburg district on Sieboldshöhe, where the Church of St. Alfons is located), as well as the Matthias-Ehrenfried-Haus , a multi-generation house in Bahnhofstraße next to the Haugin Collegiate Foundation, which is ecclesiastically sponsored as a leisure, meeting and community center Educational institution (also a Catholic conference center) named after him. In Rimpar, the school that was converted at the time and where he died, today's primary school, bears his name. A street is named after him in his birthplace Absberg .

Heraldic shield of the bishop in the Catholic castle church of Absberg

Episcopal coat of arms

In his bishop's coat of arms, he expresses his origins from rural backgrounds. Fields 1 and 4 three silver ears of wheat on a blue background and fields 2 and 3 on a red background a sickle.

His motto Gloria et pax Deo et mundo (“Honor and peace for God and for the world”) for the “contemporary expansion of the kingdom of God”.

literature

• Max Domarus: Bishop Matthias Ehrenfried and the Third Reich . Real publishing house. Wuerzburg 1998.
• Theodor Kramer:  Ehrenfried, Matthias. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 354 ( digitized version ).
• Erik Soder von Güldenstubbe : Bishop Matthias Ehrenfried. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Volume I-III / 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001-2007; III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 , pp. 479-481 and 1305.
• Wolfgang Weiss: "Our faith rests on rocky ground". Matthias Ehrenfried 1871–1948 - Bishop of Würzburg 1924–1948 and his commitment to the church during the National Socialist era . In: Maria Anna Zumholz, Michael Hirschfeld (eds.): Between pastoral care and politics. Catholic bishops in the Nazi era . Aschendorff, Münster 2017, ISBN 978-3-402-13228-9 , pp. 667-694.
• Alfred Wendehorst : The Diocese of Würzburg 1803–1957 . Stürtz, Würzburg 1965. pp. 89-99.
• Klaus Wittstadt: A bishop in difficult times: The work of Bishop Matthias Ehrenfried in the Third Reich . In: Würzburger Diözesangeschichtsblätter 57 (1995), pp. 407-420.
• Klaus Wittstadt: Ehrenfried, Matthias (1924-1948) Bishop of Würzburg. 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. 164-165.
• Klaus Wittstadt: Church and State in the 20th Century. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Volume I-III / 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001-2007; III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 , pp. 453–478 and 1304 f., Here: pp. 458–463: The era of the people's and resistance bishop Matthias Ehrenfried (1924–1948).

Web links

Commons : Matthias Ehrenfried  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Matthias Ehrenfried in the catalog of the German National Library
• Detailed biography of Matthias Ehrenfried
• Entry to Matthias Ehrenfried on catholic-hierarchy.org

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Erik Soder von Güldenstubbe : Bishop Matthias Ehrenfried. 2007, p. 479.
2. ^ Sybille Grübel: Timeline of the history of the city from 1814-2006. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Volume I-III / 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001-2007; III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. Volume 2, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 , pp. 1225-1247; here: p. 1237.
3. ↑ Klaus Witt City: church and state in the 20th century. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Volume I-III / 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001-2007; III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 , pp. 453–478 and 1304 f., Here: pp. 458–463: The era of the people's and resistance bishop Matthias Ehrenfried (1924–1948). Pp. 458-460.
4. ↑ Klaus Witt City: church and state in the 20th century. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Volume I-III / 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001-2007; III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 , pp. 453–478 and 1304 f., Here: pp. 458–463: The era of the people's and resistance bishop Matthias Ehrenfried (1924–1948). Pp. 460-462.
5. ↑ Church at War
6. ↑ Klaus Witt City (2007), p 462 f.
7. ↑ Erik Soder von Güldenstubbe (2007), p. 480.
8. ↑ Klaus Witt City (2007), p 463rd
9. ↑ Erik Soder von Güldenstubbe (2007), p. 480 f.
10. ↑ Erik Soder von Güldenstubbe (2007), pp. 481 and 1305.
11. ↑ Erik Soder von Güldenstubbe (2007), p. 481.