Maximilian of Saxony (1870–1951)

Max of Saxony around 1910

Max von Sachsen , with his full name Maximilian Wilhelm August Albert Prince of Saxony (born November 17, 1870 in Dresden , † January 12, 1951 in Freiburg im Üechtland ), was a Saxon prince , Catholic clergyman and scholar ( Eastern Church researcher ).

Life

On November 17, 1870, Max von Sachsen was born in Dresden as the third son of Prince Georg , Duke of Saxony (since 1902 King of Saxony), and Maria Anna , born Infanta of Portugal (1843-1884), the eldest daughter of the ruling Queen of Portugal, Maria da Glória , was born. He spent childhood and youth at the royal court in Dresden; there and partly also at public schools he received his education. After graduating from high school in 1888, he completed military service in 2nd Grenadier Regiment No. 101 from April 1888 to March 1889 and was promoted to Premier Lieutenant in 1889 . He then studied law , history and economics in Freiburg im Breisgau and Leipzig. In 1892 he was at the University of Leipzig for summa cum laude Doctor of Laws PhD . He then joined the 1st Saxon Uhlan Regiment , but ended his military career shortly afterwards, to study philosophy and theology at the then Episcopal Lyceum (today the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt ) in Eichstätt / Bavaria from 1893 to 1896 . During this study he lived in the Episcopal Seminary. On 26 July 1896 he was in the Schutzengelkirche Eichstaett from Dresden administrator Ludwig choice for priests ordained and waived on the day of first Mass (on August 1, 1896 in Dresden) on his claim to the Saxon throne.

After brief pastoral activities in Whitechapel / England and in Eichstätt (chaplain at St. Walburg ), after spending several months at the University of Würzburg , he received his doctorate in theology in autumn 1898 . From 1898 to 1900 he was chaplain at the Frauenkirche in Nuremberg , namely at the St. Joseph branch and at the Institute of the English Misses . Here an outstanding trait was already evident: He lived modestly in the middle of the working class ; He gave donations from the Saxon royal family to the poor. Despite his commitment to the common people, he was repeatedly attacked by the left . Also in the afterword of a later edition of Ernst Haeckel's World Riddles , in the context of the contributions by ex-Jesuit Paul Graf von Hoensbroech and the Evangelical Bundler Friedrich Nippold, the reference to Old Catholicism, which has advocated unification with the Eastern Church since the 1870s, is and goes Ligouri defenders sharply because of this anti-cultural morality.

In 1900 Max von Sachsen was appointed to the theological faculty of the University of Friborg (Switzerland) as an associate professor , from 1908 as a full professor of the newly created chair for canon law and liturgy , which he held until 1911. In 1902 he gave spiritual assistance to Etienne Chatton, the last person to be sentenced to death in Freiburg . He dealt intensively with the rites of the Eastern Church and the Eastern languages ​​such as Armenian and Church Slavonic , undertook extensive research trips in this regard, worked on the Patrologia orientalis , and finally, with an essay in November 1910, advocated the unity of Eastern and Western Churches unchanged maintenance of their rights and their independence. That was discussed very controversially. At the end of 1910, in the midst of the modernism controversy , he was papally condemned and, although he revoked, stripped of the venia for canon law.

The Kladderadatsch (December 25, 1910) rhymes with the poem Ein Fluch:

The Holy Father grew rude

And called him a cheeky badger.

He washed his head properly

And angrily stepped on his legs.

"There you have my curse, alas,

For your wicked faxes.

I advise you: go to the devil

With your principles, the lax ones!

You dared, wretched one,

To revile my high taxes!

You have complained - God be it -

Grown up to be a modernist! "

Do is breathed on by the Pope

The otherwise so pious Prince of Saxony.

I ask: did he need that?

I am deeply sorry for Maxen!

From 1910 to 1914 he worked during the semester break at the seminary of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Lviv , a Byzantine church that submitted to the Pope in Rome, but maintains the Greco-Byzantine rite. There he gave lectures on the liturgical rites of the Eastern Church. From 1912 to 1914 he also held a teaching position for liturgy at the Catholic seminary in Cologne .

During the First World War , Max von Sachsen was deployed as a field and hospital chaplain on the western front in Belgium . Under the impression of the horror and the German war crimes against the Belgian civilian population, he turned into a pacifist. Among other things, he denounced - despite the fact that the Ottoman Empire was allied with the German Empire - the genocide of the Armenians . In June 1916 he retired from military service and stayed for pastoral care and studies in Saxony, interned in the old hunting lodge in Wermsdorf . He continued to work for a theology of peace; He also devoted himself to animal welfare and was himself a vegetarian , abstinent and anti-tobacco operator.

After the end of the war and the fall of kingship, he stayed in Sibyllenort ( Silesia ) and then went to Bavaria as a pastor ( St. Bonifaz in Munich , Schleedorf and Wasserburg am Inn ). From 1921 he taught again in Friborg, namely at the philosophical faculty , where he held a teaching position for "Oriental cultures and literatures". In 1923/24 he was dean . The honor with the title of a papal house prelate , which he rejected, resulted in the de facto withdrawal of the charge of being a modernist and the ecclesiastical rehabilitation .

Max von Sachsen publicly warned early on of the emergence of National Socialism and anti-Semitism . Until 1937 he gave lectures in many cities on peace, life reform, vegetarianism and animal welfare. Retired in 1941, he continued to be honorary professor at the University of Friborg (Switzerland). Because of his appearance and his clothes, which were shabby for reasons of economy, he was considered one of the most distinctive personalities in Friborg in old age.

Max von Sachsen died on January 12, 1951 after a short illness in a Friborg hospital and was buried in the cemetery of the Kanisius Sisters in Bürglen , of which he was the chaplain. The street that leads to the cemetery was named after him.

Prince Max of Saxony belonged to the student Unitas Association (UV) and as an honorary member of the Catholic student associations K.St.V. Walhalla Würzburg and KStV Carolingia-Friborg in the KV . In 1906 he founded the student association Markomannia in Freiburg, Switzerland , which was accepted into the UV in 1912, but was soon suspended after its founder left.

Publications

• Defense of the moral theology of St. Alphonsus of Liguori against the attacks of Robert Grassmann, 1899 and other editions
• Praelectiones de liturgiis orientalibus, 2 volumes, 1903/04
• Translations of oriental (Syrian-Maronite, Chaldean, Greek, Armenian and Syrian-Antiochene) mass rites into Latin, 1907/08;
• Translation of the Greek Office of Holy Saturday (Epitaphia) into French, 1907
• Lectures on the Oriental Church Question, 1907
• The Oriental Church Question, 1906
• The Russian Church, 1907
• Christian Constantinople, 1908
• Pensées sur l'union des Eglises . In: Roma e l'Oriente 1 (1910) 13-29; German translation: Thoughts of Prince Max, Royal Highness, Duke of Saxony, on the unification of the churches . In: [Natalie] Baroness von Uxkull [Uexkull]: Rome and the Orient [1.] Jesuits and Melchites . Pormetter 1916, 67-90.
• Saint John Chrysostom's Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, 2 volumes, 1910
• St. John Chrysostom's homilies on the first book of Moses, 2 volumes, 1913/14
• Explanation of the Psalms and Cantica in their liturgical use, 1914
• Christian Hellas, 1918
• Advice and warnings on the well-being of the people and humanity, 1921
• Nerses of Lampron, Explanation of the Proverbs of Solomon, 3 volumes, 1919–26
• Nerses of Lampron, Declaration of the Assembly, 1929
• Saint Theodore, Achimandrite von Studion, 1929
• Officium de Pace, 1938
• Curriculum vitae, 1942 (autobiographical manuscript)

Exhibitions

• 2006 Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt
• 2014 Eichstätt State and Seminar Library “Prince Max of Saxony 1870–1951. King's son, chaplain and pacifist in the First World War "
• 2019 Castle Museum of Pillnitz Castle “Ahead of its time! Prince Max of Saxony - priest and visionary "

ancestors

literature

• Iso Baumer : Prince Max of Saxony. Unity of the churches, way of life, peace. Wittig, Hamburg 1985, ISBN 3-8048-4309-3 .
• Iso Baumer: Prince Max of Saxony and Armenia. In contradiction to current opinions and attitudes in church and state. Donat & Temmen, Bremen 1986, ISBN 3-924444-17-X .
• Iso Baumer:  Max. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , pp. 513-515 ( digitized version ).
• Iso Baumer: Max von Sachsen. Prince and prophet, priest and professor. 3 volumes. Universitätsverlag, Freiburg im Üechtland 1990–1996, ISBN 3-7278-0652-4 , ISBN 3-7278-0828-4 , ISBN 3-7278-1044-0 .
• Nikolaus Egender , Max Prince de Saxe. Piniier de l'oecumenisménisme. In: Irénikon . Volume 88, 2016, pp. 323–347.
• Nikolaus Egender: Le prince Max de Saxe. Précurseur de l'oecumenisménisme. In: Bulletin de la Noblesse du Royaume de Belgique. No. 289, 2017, pp. 60–81.
• Diego Hieronymi: Vegetarianism in Christianity. The church's refusal to print the manuscript “Attempt at a Theology of Vegetarianism” by Freiburg professor Prince Max von Sachsen in view of the meatless tradition of Christianity, today's level of knowledge and theological discussion. 2000 (Licentiate thesis, University of Friborg / Switzerland, 2000).
• Siegfried Koß: Prince Max of Saxony in KV and UV. In: Student Courier . New episode 10, winter 1999/91, p. 28 f.
• Iris Kretschmann, André Thieme (Ed.): Ahead of its time! Prince Max of Saxony - priest and visionary . Sandstein Verlag, Dresden 2019. ISBN 978-3-95498-465-7 .
• Seraphim ark: Rome and the Orthodox Orient. Reply to the "Lectures on the Oriental Church Question" by Prince Max, Duke of Saxony . St. Petersburg 1909. (PDF file; 164 kB)
• Friedrich Nippold : Prince Max of Saxony and Prelate Keller in Wiesbaden as defenders of Liguorian morality. Lectures. Evangelical League, Leipzig 1901.
• Joachim Salzgeber: Prince Max of Saxony, 1870–1951, The "Saint" with the sneakers. In: Maria Einsiedeln. Volume 88, 1983, pp. 157-159.
• † Mgr. Prince Max of Saxony, professor at the University of Freiburg. In: Swiss Church Newspaper . 1951, p. 43.
• The pious prince died very poor. In: Eichstätter Kurier . 20./21. May 2006.
• Lexicon for Theology and Church (LThK). Volume 6, 2006, Col. 1505 f.

Web links

• Literature by and about Maximilian von Sachsen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography (PDF file; 443 kB) (switched off)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Pensées sur la question de l'union des Églises . In: Roma e l'Oriente 1 (1910) 13-29; German translation: Thoughts of Prince Max, Royal Highness, Duke of Saxony, on the unification of the churches. In: [Natalie] Baroness von Uxkull [Uexkull]: Rome and the Orient [1.] Jesuits and Melchites. Pormetter 1916, 67-90.
2. ↑ By Pope Pius X. with the apostolic letter Ex quo of December 26, 1910. In: Acta Apostolicae Sedis III, 1911, pp. 117 ff; online (English) ; German translation: Baroness von Uxkull [Uexküll]: Rome and the Orient. [1.] Jesuits and Melchites . Pormetter 1916, 99-103.
3. ^ Catholic News Agency , July 7, 2014.
4. ↑ Robert Savary (contibuter 48881410): Dr Max of Saxony. In: Find a Grave. June 4, 2016, accessed December 8, 2018 . 
5. ↑ “Ahead of its time! Prince Max of Saxony - priest and visionary « @ schloesserland-sachsen.de, accessed May 4, 2019