Matthias Wehr

Matthias Wehr (born March 6, 1892 in Faha , Saar ; † November 6, 1967 in Trier ) was Bishop of Trier from December 20, 1951 to November 19, 1966 .

Life

Matthias Wehr came from a farming family. After elementary school he attended the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Trier with great success, which he left in 1912 with a brilliant certificate of maturity. From 1912 he studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University , where he 1914 Dr. phil. received his doctorate . After the First World War , he studied Catholic theology first in Innsbruck , then again in Rome, and in 1922 was awarded a Dr. theol. and in 1924 Dr. iur. can. PhD . On March 26, 1922, he was ordained a priest .

Pope Pius XII appointed Matthias Wehr on August 3, 1951 titular bishop of Helenopolis in Palestine and coadjutor bishop of Trier. He was ordained bishop on October 29, 1951 by the then Apostolic Nuncio in Germany and later Cardinal, Aloysius Muench . Co-consecrators were the coadjutor bishop of Luxembourg , Léon Lommel , and the auxiliary bishop of Trier, Bernhard Stein . With the death of Franz Rudolf Bornewasser on December 20, 1951, he succeeded him as Bishop of Trier.

Important events in his activity as bishop were the pilgrimage to the Holy Rock in 1959, the promotion of the German Liturgical Institute and its study courses, a new diocesan hymn book (1955), a new catechism (1956), and finally the revision of the Eckerschulbibel and especially the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), in which he participated despite his poor health. On October 7, 1966, he offered to resign from office because of his illness. His resignation was by Pope Paul VI. granted on November 19, 1966; at the same time this appointed him titular bishop of Rusuca .

In 1961 he was awarded the Great Cross of Merit with Star and Shoulder Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany. In Trier, Wehr was honored with a street in Heiligkreuz named after him in 2003 . A street in his native Faha also bears his name.

literature

• Martin Persch , Michael Embach (ed.): The bishops of Trier since 1802. Festive gift for Bishop Dr. Hermann Josef Spital on his 70th birthday on December 31, 1995. Paulinus-Verlag, Trier 1996, ISBN 3-7902-0160-X ( publications of the diocese archive Trier 30).
• Wolfgang Seibrich: The auxiliary bishops of the Diocese of Trier. Paulinus Verlag, Trier 1998, ISBN 3-7902-1326-8 ( publications of the diocese archive Trier 31).
• Martin Persch:  Wehr, Matthias. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 13, Bautz, Herzberg 1998, ISBN 3-88309-072-7 , Sp. 588-591.
• Heinz Monz (eds.) And Martin Persch (author): Wehr, Matthias , In: Trierer Biographisches Lexikon , Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2000, ISBN 3-88476-4004 , pp. 495–496.

Web links

• Entry for Matthias Wehr in the Rhineland-Palatinate personal database
• Literature by and about Matthias Wehr in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry to Matthias Wehr on catholic-hierarchy.org
• Matthias Wehr in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
• Wehr, Matthias, In: Saarland Biographien , accessed on August 6, 2019
• Wehr, Matthias, In: Germania Sacra , accessed on August 6, 2019

predecessor	Office	successor
Franz Rudolf Bornewasser	Bishop of Trier 1951–1966	Bernhard Stein