Michael von Witowski
Michael von Witowski (born September 17, 1885 in Berlin as Carl Otto Witowski; † February 1, 1945 in Schwiebus ) was a German Benedictine and from 1929 to 1933 abbot of Weingarten Monastery , later a secular priest in Berlin.
Life
Witowski was born at 21 Handelstrasse in the Hansaviertel . His father was the government assessor Carl Witowski, his mother Ida geb. from Below. The father was Catholic, the mother Protestant. Witowski entered Gerleve Abbey in early 1920 and was ordained a priest in 1925. Since 1926 subprior in the monastery Neuburg in Heidelberg , he was elected coadjutor of the abbey of Weingarten in 1929 after the resignation of the abbot Ansgar Höckelmann . As such, he expanded the Holy Blood pilgrimage belonging to the monastery. a. by founding a Holy Blood community .
After only four years in office, he gave up in 1933 in order to devote himself entirely to his favorite idea, the establishment of a Benedictine monastery in his native Berlin, which, however, did not materialize for various reasons. Witwoski then left the Benedictine order and joined the Diocese of Berlin in 1936 . In Strausberg he founded his own small community of sisters, which he moved in 1941 to the Cistercian cloister Paradies in Neumark , which was secularized in 1806 . There he died in 1945 while trying to protect some women from attacks by Soviet soldiers.
The Catholic Church accepted Abbot Michael Witowski into the German martyrology of the 20th century in 1999 .
Publications
- German Compline. Adapted to the Gregorian chanting of the Roman breviary . Verlag Das Innere Leben, Strausberg 1939
- From God's making visible. A selection from Sunday sermons and essays . Verlag Das Innere Leben, Strausberg 1939
literature
- Michael Hirschfeld: Witowski, Michael. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 29, Bautz, Nordhausen 2008, ISBN 978-3-88309-452-6 , Sp. 1569-1575.
- Michael Hirschfeld, Art .: Abbot Michael (Karl Otto) von Witowski in: Helmut Moll (Ed. On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference), Witnesses for Christ. The German Martyrology of the 20th Century Paderborn et al. 1999, 7th revised and updated edition 2019, pp. 1367-1370, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 .
Web links
- Witowski, Michael in the Biographia Benedictina (Benediktinerlexikon.de), version from October 19, 2016
Individual evidence
- ^ Birth certificate StA Berlin XII No. 2407/1885 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Witowski, Michael von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Witowski, Karl Otto von (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German Benedictine, abbot of Weingarten Monastery (1929 to 1933), later secular priest in Berlin |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 17, 1885 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 1, 1945 |
| Place of death | Świebodzin |