Paulus Birker

Paulus Birker, painting by Heinrich von Hess

Paul Birkerstraße (* 19th October 1814 in Sonthofen , † 29. November 1888 in Munich ) was a German Benedictine , Gründungsabt of St. Boniface's Abbey in Munich and from 1861 to 1877 abbot of the monastery Disentis .

Life

Birker was born in Sonthofen in 1814. His parents were the carpenter Josef Birker and Agnes Abt. He attended high school near St. Anna in Augsburg . He then studied theology in Munich . In 1837 he joined the then newly founded Benedictine Abbey of St. Stephan in Augsburg. One year after his profession , in 1839, he was ordained a priest. From 1846 to 1847 he was parish vicar , pastor, novice master and prior of the Ottobeuren priory . In 1847 he became director of the Institute for Higher Education in Augsburg. He held this office until 1850.

In 1847, on the recommendation of Barnabas Huber , he was appointed first abbot of St. Boniface's monastery by King Ludwig I. It was consecrated in 1851. However, he resigned as abbot in 1854 because the convent of the monastery did not agree with his strict ideas about ascetic monastic life. He left Germany after a few attempts to found a new company and went to Switzerland. There he became abbot of the Disentis monastery in 1861. There, too, he had little success in managing the monastery and resigned in 1877. He returned to St. Boniface, where he died in 1888.

Works

• Basic line of Christian youth education, 1850.
• Dreams and Foams: Memorandum on the Disentis Monastery, 1877.

Web links

• Entry on Orden-Online

predecessor	Office	successor
-	Abbot of Sankt Bonifaz, Munich 1850–1854	Bonifaz Haneberg