Servatius Ludwig

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Servatius Ludwig (born June 15, 1907 in Bous (Saar) as Otto Ludwig ; † May 26, 1946 in the large community of Xinzhan of the then Jiaohe district ) was a German Benedictine priest and missionary in Manchuria .

Life

Otto Ludwig was born in Bous on June 15, 1907. His parents were the railway official Peter Ludwig and his wife Angela, b. Fery. He attended grammar school in Saarlouis , where he passed his Abitur in March 1927. Following his wish to become a missionary , he joined the Archabbey of Sankt Ottilien in Upper Bavaria in May 1927 . On May 12, 1927 he made his simple profession and took the religious name "Servatius". He studied theology and philosophy in St. Ottilien and Munich . He was ordained a priest on March 26, 1933.

In August 1934 he began the journey to the mission area assigned to him in Manchukuo , a puppet state established at that time under Japanese rule in the border area between the Japanese colony of Chosen in the northeast of the Republic of China and the Soviet Union . After initially working at various mission stations there, in December 1936 he was given the management of the Sinchan station, which was set up to develop further mission areas in inner Manchuria.

In this poor, climatically extreme area, he tried to evangelize the partly Korean and partly Chinese population. Given the linguistic and cultural barriers and the worsening acts of war, missionary work in this area proved extremely difficult; he described this in detail in his reports to the home monastery and in his letters to the family in Germany. He described the dangers of marauding robber gangs, the famine, the situation of the migrant workers - but also his loneliness.

At the end of the Second World War , after the Japanese had withdrawn, first Soviet and then Chinese troops occupied Manchuria. In May 1946, Father Servatius was arrested by Chinese communists as a "spy", interrogated and shot shortly afterwards.

In June 2007 a square in Bous was named after him in honor of his hundredth birthday. Efforts are also being made to have him beatified .

Works

  • Servatius Ludwig: A mistake to Manchurian forest farmers . In: Mission sheets. Monthly journal of the Benedictine missionaries of St. Ottilien . 10, 1939, pp. 291-95
  • Servatius Ludwig: Holy Calendar . Yenki, 1940

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johannes Mahr: Abolished houses. The Missionary Benedictines in East Asia. St. Ottilien 2009, vol. 2, p. 464 ff
  2. ↑ see: Adelhard Kaspar / Placidus Berger: Hwan Gab. 60 years of Benedictine mission in Korea and Manchuria. Münsterschwarzach 1973
  3. ↑ see reports in: Freiburger Nachrichten (Switzerland) of December 21, 1946 and La Liberté (Switzerland) of December 18, 1948. See: Paul Endres: "He died a martyr's death in China", in: "Paulinus - weekly newspaper in the Diocese of Trier" from August 29, 2010
  4. ↑ Johannes Werres: "Father Norbert You and a Chinese delegation in Bous as guests on the hundredth birthday of Father Servatius", in: Saarbrücker Zeitung of June 19, 2007
  5. ↑ Johannes Werres: "Bouser Pater before beatification? - Bous commemorates Benedictine martyrs", in: Saarbrücker Zeitung of June 8, 2007
personal data
SURNAME Ludwig, Servatius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ludwig, Otto (baptismal name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Benedictine priest and missionary in Manchuria
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Bous (Saar)
DATE OF DEATH May 26, 1946
Place of death Sinchan