Oskar Sakrausky (clergyman, 1914)

Oskar Sakrausky (* 24. March 1914 in Linz , † 3. February 2006 in Fresach im Drautal ) was an Austrian Evangelical Lutheran theologian and bishop of the Evangelical Church His son of the same served from 2000 to 2013 as an Austrian Protestant Military Superintendent .

Life

Oskar Sakrausky was born as the son of a Protestant pastor in Scharten near Eferding. He started primary school in Prague , the hometown of his parents and grandparents. From 1922 he went to school for four years in Feldkirch , where his father had been transferred. When his father was called to Prague as pastor by the German Evangelical Congregation in 1926, he returned to the Vltava. In 1932 he graduated from the Staatsrealgymnasium there.

After studying in Vienna and Erlangen - where he heard from Paul Althaus , Werner Elert and Hermann Sasse , among others - he passed the official examination in Gablonz in northern Bohemia in 1939 and was appointed to the clerical office in the Michaeliskirche in Prague . In the same year Sakrausky advanced to the infantry of the German Wehrmacht and took part in the attack on Poland . After four and a half years of Soviet captivity in Tula , about 170 kilometers south of Moscow, he returned to Austria in 1949.

In 1950 he began to work again as a pastor in the camp of the Transylvanian refugees in Wallern an der Trattnach , Upper Austria. In the same year he married Hertha Strzalkovski there. The marriage resulted in two children, Oskar (* 1952) and Grete (* 1954).

Other stations in his life were Kindberg in Styria, where he had a new church built, Bad Bleiberg near Villach and Trebesing in the Lisertal. In the early 1960s, Sakrausky was called to serve as a senior church councilor in Vienna, where he was elected bishop of the Evangelical Church AB in Austria in 1968. He held the office until March 1983. He spent his retirement in Fresach. There he brought his collection of Protestantica to the local diocesan museum , whose honorary curator he remained until his death.

Positions

Sakrausky very pointedly took a strictly conservative line, shaped by the fear of any “leftist tendencies”. Together with Cardinal Franz König , he became the first bishop of his country to oppose the deadline solution for abortion in the 1970s . He called for state protection for unborn children. This brought him on the one hand resistance in his own church, on the other hand the approval of many Catholics. The fact that children are no longer perceived as a gift from God and are gratefully accepted was for him a symptom of de-Christianization and the associated ethical and moral decline of European societies.

He was also hostile to the ordination of women . In opposition to the church blessing of same-sex partnerships , he joined the Schladming Declaration in 1997.

Honors

For his work on church history on Protestantism in Slovenia and Croatia , Sakrausky received an honorary doctorate from the state-independent theological college in Basel.

As a warning to his fellow human beings, the Church Collection of the Bible and Confession (KSBB) awarded him the Walter Künneth Prize for his life's work, especially for his commitment to unborn children.

Publications

• Agoritschach . Publishing house of the history association for Carinthia. (Kärntner Museumschriften, 1954/21).
• Tolerated ... - from the beginning of the Protestant congregations in Bleiberg . Kleinmayr publishing house, Klagenfurt 1958.
• Julius Theodor Wehrenfennig: the life story of the first Protestant preacher in Gosau (main author Julius Theodor Wehrenfennig). Self-published by Oskar Sakrauski, Vienna 1968.
• Luther - a Christian [1483–1983] - exhibition in the Prunksaal d. Austria. National library for the 500th anniversary d. Martin Luther's birthday, Nov. 10, 1983 - March 30, 1984 . Evangelical Press Association, Vienna 1983.
• Primus Truber - the reformer of a forgotten church in Carniola . Verlag Evangelisches Diözesanmuseum, Fresach 1986.
• St. Ruprecht am Moos - the story of a Protestant parish in the greater Villach area . Verlag Evangelisches Pfarramt St. Ruprecht im Moos 1986.
• German preface to the Slovenian and Croatian Reformation work (main author Primož Trubar). Verlag Evangelischer Pressverband, Vienna 1989.
• The German Evangelical Church in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia - 1919–1921 . Johannes Mathesius Verlag, Heidelberg, Vienna, Bad Rappenau 1989.
• Evangelical Austria - a memorial guide . Evangelical Press Association in Austria, Vienna 1989.
• Festschrift from the House of Tolerance to the Evangelical Church in Fresach 1781–2001 . Publishers Association for Evangelical Faith Tradition in Carinthia, Fresach 2001.

Posts in

• Walter Künneth , Lars Falkfors , Oskar Sakrausky: The word from the cross . Edition C, Lahr-Dinglingen 1986, ISBN 3-501-00166-5 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Oskar Sakrausky in the catalog of the German National Library
• obituary

predecessor	Office	successor
Gerhard May	Bishop of the Evangelical Church AB in Austria 1968–1983	Dieter Knall