Seminary in Würzburg

Episcopal clerical seminar "Pastor bonus"
Main entrance to the seminar
Seminar type	Clerical seminary
address	Domerschulstrasse 18/19 97070 Würzburg
state	Bavaria
country	Germany
founding year	1567
Number of seminarians (total)	10 (as of July 2017)
Rain	Cathedral Vicar Stefan Michelberger
Sub-rain	Stefan Fleischmann
Spiritual	Cathedral Vicar Paul Weismantel
Website URL	Homepage of the seminar

The seminary of Würzburg is the diocesan training center of the Diocese of Würzburg , which trains men to become priests in addition to their theology studies . The seminary building is located between Neubaustraße and Domerschulstraße.

history

On November 11, 1567, the order of the Jesuits took over a grammar school (the predecessor of the Wirsberg grammar school ) in Würzburg . 17 Jesuits moved there and worked as teachers at the grammar school. The formation of the clergy was then linked to this. In 1570 the Alumnat, a place of residence for a total of 24 alumni, was established as a preliminary stage to the seminary . In 1582 the University of Würzburg emerged from the grammar school .

In 1589, Prince-Bishop Julius Echter issued an edict on the establishment of a spiritual seminary, as required by the Council of Trent for every diocese . From 1607 to 1610 the Agneskirche was demolished and a new church built in the style of the post-Gothic of the real time. During the turmoil of the Thirty Years War , the seminar was temporarily relocated to the Juliusspital and then to the Marian College in the so-called Pfauenhof on the corner of Kettengasse and Domerschulstrasse. In 1655 the seminary moved back to the old premises.

From 1715 to 1719, during the so-called Greiffenclau period , the north wing of the Jesuit college was built under the rain and Vicar General Philipp Braun by Joseph Greissing in the current form of the seminary. From 1728 to 1731 the so-called Regentenbau was built according to plans by the well-known Baroque master builder Balthasar Neumann . From 1765 to 1798 the new construction of the Michaelskirche was built under Johann Philipp Geigel and Johann Michael Fischer. In 1789 the seminary finally moved to the building of the Jesuit college and received the title of Good Shepherd Seminar . The seminary church of St. Michael was consecrated in 1831 . The previous sub-rain and ultramontanist Franz Georg Benkert (1790-1859) had been appointed as the successor to Carl Rutta (1776-1837) as Regens (seminar leader) from 1832 to 1838 . The bishops Adam Friedrich Groß zu Trockau (bishop from 1818 to 1840), who had pushed back the existing approaches of the Catholic Enlightenment at the time, and Georg Anton von Stahl (bishop 1840 to 1870), who, in the sense of a, were significantly involved in the expansion of the seminary ecclesiastical restoration determined by ultramontane. A boys' seminar planned by Bishop von Stahl to train poor boys to become theologians was only implemented as the Kilianeum in Würzburg in 1871 after his death . From October 23 to November 12, 1848, the dining room of the seminary was the meeting place for the first German Bishops' Conference .

The seminary burned down during the bombing raid on Würzburg in 1945. It took until the 1960s for reconstruction to take place. At the turn of the millennium (1997 to 2003) the seminar was completely renovated and brought up to the most modern standards at the time. This resulted in 64 student apartments, common rooms and new training rooms for seminars, pastoral courses and the training of priests up to the second service examination.

present

Today the house is used for the training of candidates for priesthood from the Diocese of Würzburg and the Archdiocese of Bamberg who are studying. The alumni who are in the preparatory course, which was newly established in 2008 (a year preceding their studies), live together with the alumni from the ecclesiastical province of Bamberg and the alumni from the ecclesiastical province of Berlin in the seminary in Bamberg. The Würzburg seminary also serves as a conference and guest house for the Würzburg diocese. Since the 2015/16 winter semester, rented students from other faculties have been living in the Borgias building and can participate in the alumnate's house life.

Allegations of anti-Semitism

In 2013 anti-Semitism allegations were made against members of the Würzburg seminary. In 2017, a victim who was expelled from the Würzburg seminary was a member of the Eichstätt diocese . The ordination of this priestly candidate aroused criticism, among others, from the President of the Central Council of Jews .

Regents since 1966

• 1966–1969: Anton Schlembach († 2020)
• 1969–1976: Prelate Rudolf Weigand († 1998)
• 1976–1983: Heinz Röschert
• 1983–1996: Prelate Karl Hillenbrand († 2014)
• 1996–2008: Gerhard Weber
• 2008–2016: Monsignor Herbert Baumann
• since 2016: Cathedral Vicar Stefan Michelberger

Web links

• Homepage of the seminary

swell

1. ↑ Stefan Kummer : Architecture and fine arts from the beginnings of the Renaissance to the end of the Baroque. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes; Volume 2: From the Peasants' War in 1525 to the transition to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1814. Theiss, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8062-1477-8 , pp. 576–678 and 942–952, here: pp. 635–638.
2. ↑ Statutes of the Episcopal Clerical Seminary, 1928  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 860 kB)  
3. ↑ Wolfgang Weiss : The Catholic Church in the 19th Century. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes, Volume I-III / 2, Theiss, Stuttgart 2001-2007; III / 1–2: From the transition to Bavaria to the 21st century. 2007, ISBN 978-3-8062-1478-9 , pp. 430-449 and 1303, here: pp. 433 and 437.
4. ↑ Homepage of the seminary  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ^ Priesterseminar Würzburg: History: Overview , accessed on February 26, 2016.
6. ^ Entry ( memento of August 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) on the seminar homepage.
7. ↑ http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/antisemitismus-war-doch-nur-ein-witz.886.de.html?dram:article_id=392008