Paul Oestreicher
Paul Oestreicher (born September 29, 1931 in Meiningen ) is an Anglican pastor and cathedral chapter emeritus . He was canon and director of the Reconciliation Center at Coventry Cathedral in England and chairman of the UK section of Amnesty International . He has been awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class and is an honorary citizen of the city of Meiningen.
Life
Paul Oestreicher was born as the son of the pediatrician Paul Oestreicher (1896–1981) in Meiningen ( Thuringia ). Until shortly after starting school in the autumn of 1938, he had a carefree childhood there. Due to his father's Jewish descent, his family had to leave Germany in 1939. They found asylum in New Zealand , where he continued to grow up.
From 1949 to 1955 he studied German and political science . In 1955 he received a one-year research grant from Professor Helmut Gollwitzer in Bonn on the subject of Christianity and Marxism . This was followed by training at the seminary in Lincoln , England, from 1956 to 1958 , which was followed by an activity as a visiting parish vicar in the Evangelical Church of Hesse-Nassau until 1959 .
In 1960 he was ordained deacon and priest in London and became a chaplain in east London. From 1961 to 1964 he was program director for Church and Society at the BBC . He then worked until 1969 as the British Council of Churches' Eastern European advisor; The Quakers had taken over the financing of the position through the Rowntree Charitable Trust - Oestreicher succeeded Richard Karl Ullmann, who died in 1963, in a certain sense . He initially took an active part in the work of the Christian Peace Conference when the Second All-Christian Peace Assembly took place in Prague in 1964 , and he was elected to its working committee. In 1968 he was excluded from the leadership group because of his criticism of the suppression of the Prague Spring supported by the Christian Peace Conference .
Other stations in his life were from 1968 to 1981 parish pastors in Blackheath in south London and from 1981 to 1985 head of the foreign office of the British Council of Churches.
Since 1983 he has been a member of the "Religious Society of Friends" ( Quakers ).
From 1985 to 1997 he was canon and director of the International Reconciliation Center of Coventry Cathedral . In 1988 he arranged for Bärbel Bohley , Werner Fischer and Vera Wollenberger an invitation to study abroad in Great Britain, which (depending on the assessment) made it possible for them to get out of custody and leave the GDR or give the GDR authorities the opportunity to to deport them abroad.
He has been retired as Cathedral Chapter Emeritus since 1998 . Paul Oestreicher has been married to the New Zealander Barbara Einhorn , professor at the University of Sussex, for the second time since 2001 and lives in Brighton , England. Einhorn was briefly imprisoned in the GDR in 1983 because of her contacts with women's groups, and Oestreicher was one of those who achieved her release.
In autumn 2010 Oestreicher traveled through Germany to hold events. For several years he has been active in summer pastoral care on Hiddensee . Oestreicher regularly visits his hometown Meiningen with his wife, where he is an honorary citizen and still feels closely connected to it. Here he celebrated his 80th birthday, laid stumbling blocks with Gunter Demnig and planted trees he had donated.
On September 22nd, 2013 Paul Oesterreicher gave the sermon on the Eichplatz in Jena at the closing service of the Kirchentag of the Evangelical Church of Central Germany.
Services
Paul Oestreicher is a journalist and publicist in the fields of human rights, peace, faith and society. As chairman of the UK section of Amnesty International, he advocated political prisoners in Eastern Europe and South Africa . Furthermore, as an Anglican pastor , he promoted relations with the churches in the GDR and South Africa.
He played a decisive role in the East-West reconciliation during the Cold War as chairman of the reconciliation work at Coventry Cathedral and as the founder of the "Dresden Trust", which contributed the British part to the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche in Dresden.
Honorary positions
- 1975 to 1979: Chairman of the UK section of Amnesty International
- since 1986: Vice-President of the CND , the central peace movement in Great Britain
- since 2004: Associate in the University Pastoral Care Department at the University of Sussex in Brighton
Awards
Through his diverse efforts for reconciliation and human rights, Paul Oestreicher received a number of important awards: the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class, the Medal of Honor of the City of Coventry and the Order of Merit of the Free State of Saxony (2004). He was also awarded a Dr. suffered. hc from the University of Coventry , is a Wartburg Prize winner and has been an honorary citizen of his native Meiningen since 1995 . On July 1, 2008, he received an Honorary Theological Doctorate (DD) awarded as a Lambeth Degree by Rowan Williams , Archbishop of Canterbury .
Publications
- The disease of our time as a problem for doctors and pastors. Friedrich, Pyrmont 1965.
- Remembering and commemorating. Steinmann 1991, ISBN 3-927043-15-X .
- On the cross. Wichern-Verlag, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-88981-040-3 .
- The Quakers: An Order in the Community of Christians? Publishing house Religious Society of Friends, Bad Pyrmont 1997, ISBN 3-929696-23-1 .
- November 9th - a fateful day in Germany? Considerations for November 9th of the last century on the occasion of the opening of the Chapel of Reconciliation at the location of the Potsdam Garrison Church on November 9th, 2006. Full text (PDF; 81 kB)
literature
- Ursula Engel, in: Der Tagesspiegel. printed version of November 10, 2001.
- FW Meininger Tageblatt. Edition September 29, 2006.
- Action Reconciliation for Peace Services eV, Berlin.
- Dieter Schneeberger, in: Sunday paper. dated October 8, 2006.
Web links
- Literature by and about Paul Oestreicher in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ^ Merrilyn Thomas: Communing with the enemy: covert operations, Christianity and Cold War politics in Britain and the GDR. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2005, ISBN 3-03910-192-7 , p. 125.
- ^ A life for hope for reconciliation , Mitteldeutsche Kirchenzeitung, September 26, 2011, accessed on December 11, 2011.
- ↑ Angelika Reiser-Fischer: Political scientist Paul Oestreicher returns to Thuringian homeland , thueringer-allgemeine.de, August 24, 2011.
- ↑ Jews in Meiningen ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Oestreicher, Paul |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Anglican pastor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 29, 1931 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Meiningen |