Moritz Thomann

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Moritz Thomann SJ (born April 19, 1722 in Langenargen , † December 19, 1805 in Bozen ) was a German Catholic missionary who worked mainly in India and Africa.

biography

In 1722 Thomann's Protestant parents, the linen weaver Jakob Thoman and Katharina Hütt, gave up their citizenship of the imperial city of Leutkirch and settled with their children in Langenargen in order to adopt the Catholic faith. On the occasion of the baptism of Moritz Thomann, who was born in Langenargen, on April 19, 1722, the entire family converted in the Langenargen Capuchin Monastery . Of the total of 17 children, only three sons survived: Moritz and his older brothers Jakob, who studied in Innsbruck and died as a Capuchin in Switzerland, and Joseph, who moved to Italy as a silk manufacturer in his father's profession.

He attended the seven-year Jesuit grammar school in Innsbruck and completed his preparatory studies in philosophy with the fathers of the Capuchin monastery in Bolzano . After the death of his father and godfather, he had to break off his studies in pharmacy and medicine at the University of Innsbruck , which he started in 1743 for financial reasons . Moritz Thomann made a pilgrimage to Rome over Christmas 1747, where he worked in various hospitals, a.o. a. the Heiliggeistspital Sassia practiced before 1750, the Society of Jesus (SJ) in Rome joined. Supported by the Order, he obtained a doctorate in medicine and philosophy from the Macerata College . He went to India, was ordained a priest in the college of Goa in the fall of 1755 and worked there as a missionary until 1757. Then his order sent him to the Portuguese colonies on the east coast of South Africa, where he also worked as a doctor because of his medical training.

In the course of the abolition of the Jesuit order , the priest was interned in Africa in 1759, brought back to Goa and from there to Portugal in 1761, where he was innocently imprisoned for 16 years until the death of the Portuguese King Joseph I.

He was not released until 1777. Thomann spent his twilight years as a priest in his former university town of Bozen.

Works

  • Mauriz Thoman: Mauriz Thomans, former. Isa. and miss. in Asia and Africa, travel and life descriptions . Augsburg 1788 ( full text in the Google book search).
  • Moritz Thoman: An ex-Jesuit . An autobiography. Ed .: JB Kempf. Reissue. Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1867 ( full text in the Google book search). In his autobiographical work, in addition to his missionary work, Thomann examines the fate of the Jesuits in Portugal.
  • Mauritius Thoman: The strange life of the Jesuit Mauritius Thoman: - An autobiography - 18th century . New edition (translation) edition. Bernhard Oeckl, Langenargen 2019, DNB  1189190036 (translation of the autobiography of Mauritius Thoman, originally written in old German Fraktur script in 1788, into the new German script and spelling).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ NN: supplementary booklet . In: Voices from Maria Laach . Supplement, No. 73-76 , 1900, pp. 197 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ↑ there cited as a source (PDF; 4.3 MB)
  3. ^ In the catalog of the German National Library
personal data
SURNAME Thomann, Moritz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thomann, Moritz SJ
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German religious
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1722
PLACE OF BIRTH Langenargen
DATE OF DEATH December 19, 1805
Place of death Bolzano