Norbert Zechner

Norbert Zechner OSB (born October 6, 1851 in the Laintal near Trofaiach ; † March 12, 1888 in St. Lambrecht ) was an Austrian Benedictine who was abbot of St. Lambrecht's Abbey from 1887 to 1888 .

Life

Norbert Zechner was born on October 6, 1851 as a farmer's son in the Laintal near Trofaiach, today a district of Trofaiach, at that time still part of the independent community of Hafning near Trofaiach ; his baptismal name was Karl . In October 1862, just eleven years old, Zechner came to the prince-bishop's seminary in Graz , where he passed his Matura with distinction in July 1870 and then began studying theology at the Graz seminary . On September 7, 1872, he entered the Benedictine Abbey of St. Lambrecht. Here he was dressed by Prior Gebhard Husiczka and received St. Norbert von Xanten as his patron. After the novitiate , Zechner finished his theology studies at the private school of the Benedictine Abbey of Admont before he was ordained priest on March 26, 1876 in Graz .

With the Easter Monday mass on April 17, 1876, Zechner celebrated his first Holy Mass in the collegiate church of St. Lambrecht , before he made his solemn profession on September 29 of the same year . Then he took over the supervision of the abbey library and soon after that of the abbey archive. He created catalogs of the library holdings and was entrusted with the compilation of important statistical and historical data on behalf of Abbot Alexander Setznagel until his early death . Furthermore, he wrote several articles on the founding history of St. Lambrecht and the construction of the collegiate church. He was also employed in the surrounding monastery parishes with pastoral care workers and taught Greek at the collegiate high school from 1877 . In the spring of 1878 he was prefect of the Stiftskonvikts and he reached on 20 November 1884 his promotion to the doctorate in theology in Graz.

At this point already in charge of a heart valve defect , in October 1886 he became priory of the priests and at the same time district dean , priest and novice master . After the previous abbot Alexander Setznagel died on May 19, 1887 after a short illness, Zechner first took over his office as administrator, before he was canonically elected abbot on October 13, 1887 . The benediction took place three days later, on October 16, 1887, in the collegiate church of St. Lambrecht. Not even half a year later, Zechner died on March 12, 1888 at the age of 36 from the consequences of a heart attack that he had suffered due to his heart valve defect. Like his predecessors, he was buried in the abbot's vault of the collegiate church.

In addition to different notes on the history of the St. Lambrecht he also wrote the chapter on St. Lambrecht Benedictine book by Sebastian Brunner , which in 1880 in Würzburg was published.

literature

• Obituary , in: Studies and communications on the history of the Benedictine order and its branches 9, 1888, pp. 299–301.

Web links

• Norbert Zechner in the Biographia Benedictina (Benediktinerlexikon.de)

predecessor	Office	successor
Alexander Setznagel	Abbot of the Abbey of St. Lambrecht 1887–1888	Othmar Murnik