Richard Goelz

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Richard Gölz (born February 5, 1887 in Stuttgart , † May 3, 1975 in Milwaukee , Wisconsin ) was an important Christian church musician and theologian . Initially evangelical, he converted to Russian Orthodoxy in 1949.

Life

Richard Gölz was born as the son of the teacher Johannes Gölz and a wife Margarethe Magdalena Gölz, geb. Born summer. The piano he had during his school years self-taught taught. He studied theology in Tübingen from 1905 to 1910 , also dedicated himself to church music and was ordained a Protestant pastor in 1910. After his vicariate he was the chaplain of the Stuttgart deaconess institution , from 1916 to 1920 he was parish pastor in Knittlingen . On May 19, 1914, he married Hildegard Werner in Affalterbach . In Stuttgart and later also in Knittlingen, he had the opportunity to take organ lessons and to train in music theory. In 1920 he became a music teacher at the Evangelical Monastery in Tübingen . After an initial reluctance towards the singing movement , he quickly became a co-initiator of Singwochen in 1924. From 1926 he was appointed lecturer at the Württemberg University of Music in Stuttgart and in 1927 he was appointed church music director. In 1928 he became music director of the Protestant monastery in Tübingen.

In 1931 suggested Goelz with that of the Tuebingen Collegiate Church on two evenings Vespers and Metten were sung, this was one of the main precursors of which took place after the war founded the Tubingen motet by Walter Kiefner .

In 1933 Gölz invited together with the Alpirsbach parish priest Schildge to a so-called “church week” in the Alpirsbach Minster . During this week the service of common adoration and intercession in the evangelical church was to be revitalized in order to “seriously ask what has been given to us in and with the church” (quote from the invitation) - ultimately the goal was church and to revive the congregation from within, out of the service, and thus to find an answer to the pressing questions of the time, especially the threat posed by National Socialism . This resulted in the church work Alpirsbach , which is still active today , and Gölz is to be regarded as its co-founder and first director.

In 1934 he bundled his experience in the publication of the choral hymn book , which made him widely known because it was the first in the 20th century that it brought out the most important church music works, especially from the Reformation period and the early Baroque, for choir work in the parishes. The choral hymn book is one of the standard works of every German Protestant church choir up to the present day. At the same time, he was involved with Heinrich Lang, the son of Heinrich Lang of the same name , one of his musical teachers in Stuttgart from 1915 to 1916, and other like-minded people in the Church Theological Society , the wing of the Confessing Church in Württemberg that was consistently critical of Nazi Germany .

In 1935 Gölz moved to the parish office in Wankheim near Tübingen: His focus here was the field service. From 1937 the Alpirsbacher Weeks took place here regularly, which in 1940 resulted in the establishment of a separate “house church”. However, through his efforts to get the regional church recognized for the “church work”, the gap between Gölz and the church leadership was deepened.

During the war years, Richard Gölz's parsonage served as a refuge for Jews who were brokered, hidden and passed on to other parsonages by the Berlin office of Grüber ( Württemberg parsonage chain ). Gölz was finally denounced and arrested on December 23, 1944 during the early church service in Tübingen. He was transferred to the Welzheim concentration camp , but was released again in 1945. After returning to Wankheim, he organized church weeks in the Bebenhausen monastery in addition to his pastoral service . According to his ideas, Bebenhausen should have become a “seminar of the Confessing Church” and a kind of permanent convention of the Alpirsbach church work; there he began a kind of monastic life with initially three, later two "sisters". However, Gölz's steps were not supported either by the Stuttgart church leadership or by his employees in the Alpirsbach church work, so that a rift broke out with both bodies. Gölz took a leave of absence and was early retired soon after.

Gregorian Sanctus in German in the handwriting of R. Gölz

Now Gölz began to study the teaching and worship of the Orthodox Church. Here he found something of what he was looking for; In 1949 Gölz converted to Russian Orthodoxy and was ordained a priest in 1950. After moving to Hamburg he began to learn Church Slavonic in order to be able to translate the old Orthodox hymns and engravings for his community. He also tried his hand at composing chants and prayers in the style of the Orthodox liturgy.

In November 1958 Gölz moved to America, his destination was Milwaukee / Wisconsin, where he entered the service of the Orthodox St. Sava Cathedral. On Holy Saturday, May 3, 1975, he died here as a protopresbyter .

Honors

After their death in 1992 Richard and Hilde Gölz were counted among the “ Righteous Among the Nations ” in Yad Vashem . In Tübingen a street was named after Richard and Hilde Gölz. In the collegiate church of Tübingen , a stumbling stone by the artist Gunter Demnig in the floor of the vestibule indicates that Gölz was arrested here on December 23, 1944 and taken to the Welzheim concentration camp .

Works

  • Choral hymn book: sacred chants for one to five voices. On behalf of the Association of Protestant Church Choirs in Württemberg, with collabor. by Konrad Ameln and Wilhelm Thomas ed. by Richard Gölz. Reprint of the 1st edition from 1934, Kassel [u. a.]: Bärenreiter-Verlag 2005
  • Kurrende , contribution to the keyword of the same name in: "The religion in past and present", third volume, published by JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1927, column 1439

literature

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Short biography with Joachim Conrad: Liturgy as art and play; The church work Alpirsbach 1933–2003. Lit, Münster 2003, ISBN 3-8258-6792-7 . Pp. 246-247
  2. ↑ Richard Gölz on TÜpedia.
personal data
SURNAME Goelz, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German church musician and theologian
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH 3rd May 1975
Place of death Milwaukee , Wisconsin