Otto Spülbeck

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Bishop Otto Spülbeck

Otto Spülbeck CO (born January 8, 1904 in Aachen ; † June 21, 1970 in Mittweida ) was bishop of the Catholic diocese of Meißen from 1958 until his death . He took part in the Second Vatican Council and sought to implement its resolutions by means of a diocesan synod in his own diocese.

Education and career

Otto Spülbeck was born into a family of doctors. After leaving school, he first studied natural sciences in Bonn from 1923 to 1924 , but was already looking for contact with theology professors there. From 1924 to 1927, Spülbeck studied theology and philosophy in Innsbruck . In 1927 he was promoted to Dr. phil. PhD. He decided to become a pastor in the diaspora and therefore , after completing his theology studies in Tübingen, entered the seminary of the Meissen diocese in Schmochtitz in 1929 .

After his ordination on April 5, 1930, Spülbeck was chaplain in Chemnitz and Leipzig until 1937 . Because of the lack of priests in the diocese of Meißen, the ordinariate in Bautzen refused him entry to the Leipzig oratory . At the same time, Spülbeck based his work on the views of the Oratorians. After he had been appointed pastor of the parish of St. Laurentius in Leipzig-Reudnitz in 1937 , he introduced youth masses there , which he celebrated for the most part in German and “ versus populum ”; H. facing the believers, at a specially set up free-standing altar table . He was thus involved in the testing and preparation of the liturgical reforms that were later introduced for the whole Church by the Second Vatican Council.

In the last days of World War II, in April 1945, Spülbeck was appointed provost of Leipzig . His most difficult task was to organize church help for the numerous refugees from the former German eastern regions and to integrate the Catholic Silesians, East Prussians (especially Ermländer ), Danube Swabians , etc. into the parishes of the Saxon city. He negotiated unsuccessfully with the state authorities to rebuild the bombed provost church . From 1951 to 1955 he was also managing director of the St. Benno publishing house .

As a priest, too, Spülbeck continued to be interested in scientific questions and gave numerous lectures on this topic. His concern was to show that scientific knowledge and Christian belief do not contradict one another. The book The Christian and the Worldview of Modern Sciences , the first edition of which appeared in 1948, emerged from his lectures .

Bishop of Meissen

On June 28, 1955, Pope Pius XII appointed him . at the suggestion of the sick bishop Heinrich Wienken as coadjutor and titular bishop of Christopolis . On July 25, 1955, the Bishop of Berlin , Wilhelm Weskamm , donated him episcopal ordination . Co-consecrators were Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Freusberg from Erfurt and Auxiliary Bishop Franz Hengsbach from Paderborn .

Three years later he was appointed resident bishop of Meißen and enthroned on July 24, 1958 in Bautzen Cathedral. His motto was: Unum in veritate et laetitia (“One in truth and in joy”).

Bishop Spülbeck drew attention to himself through open criticism of the SED regime and as an advocate of a reunified Germany. During the Cologne Katholikentag in 1956, he gave a sermon that caused quite a stir in both parts of Germany. With the image of the “strange house”, he expressed the fundamental difference between church and state in the GDR due to ideological differences. Therefore, Spülbeck and the other East German bishops believed that collaboration between church and state was out of the question.

“We live in a house whose foundations we didn't build, whose supporting foundations we even believe are wrong. This house remains a strange house to us. We not only live in church in the diaspora, but also in the state. "

- Otto Spülbeck

In a pastoral letter from November 1956, Spülbeck criticized, albeit cautiously, the violent suppression of the Hungarian uprising , which had been celebrated by the SED propaganda as a blow against "Horthy fascism".

Council and diocesan synod

From 1962 to 1965, Spülbeck took part in the Second Vatican Council. He took part in particular in the deliberations on the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium . As one of the few bishops with a sound scientific knowledge, Spülbeck was also an important expert for the Council Fathers, as far as the position of the Church with regard to the exact sciences and modern technology concerned.

Bishop Spülbeck was one of the first bishops in the world who tried to implement the decisions of Vatican II in his diocese. As early as 1959, three years before the council, the bishop had addressed his plan to the dean of his diocese to convene a diocesan synod to deal with the necessary reforms in the diocese of Meissen. In 1965, Spülbeck took up this plan again. In August he announced the holding of a synod to the priests of his diocese, and in January 1966 the people of the Church were informed about it in a pastoral letter. Even in the preparatory phase, the laity were intensively involved in the work in a way that was new and unusual for the Catholic Church. In April 1969 the bishop obtained a papal dispensation which allowed lay people to be called synodians. Finally, in June, the Meissen diocesan synod met in the Catholic Court Church in Dresden for its first working session. Up until his sudden death in June 1970, Spülbeck was only able to put into force the first decree of the synod aims and tasks of the renewal of the diocese of Meissen after the Second Vatican Council .

The chairman of the Berlin Bishops' Conference, Alfred Cardinal Bengsch , was very critical of the image of the church represented by Spülbeck and the Meißner Synod and, not least, of the appreciation of the laity in the church. In early 1970 he considered having the Roman Curia investigate . Theological reports, etc. a. by Joseph Ratzinger , but confirmed that Spülbeck had acted on the basis of canon law and in the spirit of Vatican II.

Otto Spülbeck died of a heart attack on June 21, 1970 in the rectory in Mittweida on the way home from the women's pilgrimage in Wechselburg . He was buried in Bautzen in the Nikolaikirchhof .

Fonts

  • The Christian and the worldview of modern natural science. 6 lectures on borderline questions from physics and biology , Berlin 1949.
  • The becoming of the universe , Berlin 1950.
  • A catechetically effective design of the celebration of the Mass. An experience report , Berlin 1962.
  • On the encounter between science and theology , Einsiedeln 1969.
  • Borderline questions between science and belief , Munich 1970.

literature

in order of appearance

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marc-Dietrich Ohse: Youth after the Wall was built. Adaptation, protest and obstinacy (GDR 1961–1974) . Ch. Links, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-86153-295-6 , p. 211.
  2. ↑ Thomas Großbölting : The lost sky. Faith in Germany since 1945 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-525-30040-4 , p. 239.
  3. ↑ 77th German Catholic Convention 1956 in Cologne. The Church the sign of God among the peoples. Paderborn 1957.
  4. ^ Peter Bien: Bishop Otto Spülbeck and the Hungarian uprising in 1956 . In: Day of the Lord , born 1998, no.44.
  5. ↑ Josef Gülden : Bishop Otto Spülbeck and the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council . In: Heinrich Bulang: Unum in veritate et laetitia. Bishop Dr. Otto rinsing in memory . St. Benno Verlag, Leipzig 1970, pp. 1-10.
  6. ^ Christian März: "The atomic bishop of Bautzen ..." on the 100th birthday of Bishop Otto Spülbeck . In: Day of the Lord , born in 2004, No. 1.
  7. ^ Rolf Schumacher: Church and socialist world. An investigation into the question of the reception of “Gaudium et spes” by the pastoral synod of the Catholic Church in the GDR . St. Benno Verlag, Leipzig 1998, ISBN 3-7462-1308-8 .
  8. ↑ Hans Joachim Meyer : The commitment of the laity in the church after the Second Vatican Council . In: Albert Franz, Wolfgang Baum (Ed.): Theology in Eastern Europe since 1989. Developments and perspectives . Lit, Münster 2009, ISBN 978-3-8258-1529-5 , pp. 166–187, here p. 167.
  9. ^ Josef Pilvousek : Conciliar impulses in the field of tension between church political and internal church developments. The Catholic Church in the GDR 1966 to 1973 . In: Katarzyna Stokłosa, Andrea Strübind (ed.): Faith - Freedom - Dictatorship in Europe and the USA. Festschrift for Gerhard Besier for his 60th birthday . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-525-35089-8 , pp. 287-300, here p. 293.

Web links

predecessor Office successor
Heinrich Wienken Bishop of Meissen
1958–1970 		Gerhard Schaffran
personal data
SURNAME Sink, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Spuelbeck, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Roman Catholic theologian and Bishop of Meissen
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Aachen
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1970
Place of death Mittweida