Tecelin Jaksch

Tecelin Jaksch

Tecelin Jaksch OCist (real name Josef Jacksch ; born March 23, 1885 in Haklovy Dvory (German Hackelhöf ), near Budweis ; †  May 23, 1954 in Rein Abbey ) was the 43rd abbot of Vyšší Brod monastery and administrator of Rein Abbey .

Life

The grave of Abundus Kuntschak and Tecelin Jaksch at the Rein-Eisbach Abbey cemetery.

Tecelin grew up as the eighth of a total of 13 children on his parents' estate . The area around Haklovy Dvory was predominantly inhabited by Czechs at that time, but there were also German-speaking islands. Jaksch grew up bilingual. In 1896 Jaksch came to the Imperial and Royal German State High School in Budweis. After graduation, Jaksch began his novitiate in the Vyšší Brod monastery on August 20, 1904, and made his profession on August 21, 1905 , and was given the religious name Tecelin (father of St. Bernard of Clairvaux ). In the same year he began to study theology at the University of Innsbruck .

A dispensation from Rome enabled Jaksch to make his solemn profession before Abbot Bruno Pammer on April 19, 1908, at the age of 23 , who also gave him the minor orders on September 29, 1906 . On July 19, Jaksch was sub-deacon , on July 25, deacon and received on 26 July 1908 with diocesan Bishop Franz Maria Doppelbauer in Linz , the ordination . On August 2, 1908 Jaksch celebrated his first holy mass in the abbey church of Vyšší Brod and then returned to Innsbruck to complete his studies. His first job as chaplain he took on September 2, 1909 in Přídolí , where he stayed until his appointment as chaplain of Boršov on September 26, 1911, because he spoke Czech and the population there was mostly Czech.

From May 24, 1917 until the end of the First World War, Jaksch served as a military curate in the Austrian army in the kuk infantry regiment of General Claudius von Czibulka . During his service he came to Eger and the Isonzo Front and in 1918 was awarded the Spiritual Cross of Merit II Cl. On the white and red ribbon with the swords . After the war he returned to his home monastery and on January 15, 1919 was again chaplain in Boršov.

After the death of Abbot Bruno Pammer on November 22, 1924, Father Tecelin was elected 43rd abbot of the Vyšší Brod Monastery on May 23, 1925 with an absolute majority. The Benediction took place on June 4, 1925 by the Budweiser Diocesan Bishop Šimon Bárta . His main concerns were to improve the economic situation of the monastery after the First World War and to reacquire the monastery possessions, which were confiscated by Czechoslovakia in 1919 , which he partially succeeded in doing. He also had the monastery renovated and partially modernized. He also began renovating the then dilapidated Zlatá Koruna monastery . In 1938 Jaksch had some of the monastery's treasures brought to Prague from the German occupiers. On November 15, 1938 he was appointed by the Budweiser Bishop Šimon Bárta as the episcopal commissioner of the separated part of the Budweis diocese in the German Empire.

On November 21, 1938, Jaksch was arrested by the Gestapo for his pro-Czech attitude and taken to the Gestapo prison in Linz , following a complaint from the forester at the monastery . On March 2, 1939, he was sentenced in Český Krumlov to six months in prison for crimes of fornication against nature . After his release on May 20, 1939, he went to Přídolí and from there to his brother in Linz. On May 25, 1939, Jaksch was arrested again by the Gestapo and given two days to fetch his things from the Vyšší Brod monastery, as the Germans did not tolerate a Czechoslovak citizen as head of the monastery. Jaksch traveled to Budweis on June 1, 1939, where he found accommodation with the bishop. By order of the Gestapo he had to leave Budweis on July 6, 1939 and traveled via Prague to the Porta Coeli monastery , where he lived in the provost's office . In 1940/41 he had to report to the Gestapo headquarters in Brno every week . It is known that Jaksch owned a radio with which he listened to so-called "enemy stations", especially American news, which at the time was punishable by death. In addition, he often went to Ceske Budejovice, where he came into contact with the association Svaz národní revoluce . Jaksch's home monastery Vyšší Brod was occupied and dissolved by the Linz Gestapo on April 17, 1941, and the monks were drafted into military service or found refuge in the parishes of the monastery. When two or three German soldiers were shot dead in Předklášteří on May 5, 1945 , around 200 local people were to be executed. Jaksch negotiated with the German commander that the punishment should be converted into work on the trench.

After the end of the German occupation in Czechoslovakia , Abbot Tecelin Jaksch went to Prague on May 31, 1945 and negotiated there on June 1 the return of the expropriated possessions and the restoration of the abandoned Vyšší Brod monastery, to which he returned on June 18, 1945 . From 1946 the German population was expelled from Czechoslovakia, which also affected the German-speaking monks of the monastery. The first German monks left Vyšší Brod in 1946 and drove via Heiligenkreuz to Rein Abbey in Styria . Jaksch tried to set up a Czech convention and to get Czechoslovak citizenship for German applicants as well as for himself. His attempts failed, however, and the Local National Committee set itself the goal of expelling Jaksch from the country. On November 19, 1947 Jaksch was interrogated by the police for alleged anti-state actions. On December 17, 1947, the apartment was searched and on February 5, 1948, another interrogation took place. The Zawisch Cross of the monastery was handed over by Jaksch to Budweiser Bishop Josef Hlouch on February 5, 1948 for safekeeping.

At the end of February 1948 Jaksch was again asked to send the German confreres out of the monastery. After the communist party seized power in Czechoslovakia, Jaksch assured on March 1, 1947 that the German monks would soon leave the monastery and that he would renounce the administration of the monastic economy. The German monks left the monastery on April 10 and found refuge in the Heiligenkreuz , Schlierbach , Wilhering and Zwettl monasteries in Austria. Since Jaksch feared arrest, he prepared to leave for Austria. On April 5, the district national committee in Kaplice did not allow them to leave the country, but they did allow them to move to a monastery in Prague. Jaksch chose the Lords of the Cross, but had to move to the Porta Coeli monastery on April 15 because of his alleged fascist attitude . Another application to leave for Austria was granted on June 18, 1948, provided that Jaksch was released from the Czech Church. Bishop Josef Hlouch was discharged on June 24th. Two days later Jaksch left Czechoslovakia and met with former confreres from Vyšší Brod in Bad Leonfelden . The abbot praeses of the Austrian Cistercian Congregation offered Jaksch the office of administrator in the Rein monastery after Friedrich Pfenningbauer, who was elected in an abbot election on March 23, 1939, could not take up the post due to illness. Jaksch refused at first and wanted to take over the management of the pilgrimage site Maria Taferl . Only after Jaksch became seriously ill in July 1949, had his spleen removed, had been in bed for several days with a severe fever and interpreted his recovery as a sign from God, did he decide to take over the management of the Rein monastery. On September 29, 1949, the Rein chapter unanimously approved the appointment of Jaksch as administrator, which he also accepted on November 20. Since he did not want to lose the title of abbot of Vyšší Brod, he could not be elected as abbot of Rein, which is why he held the office of abbot administrator.

Shortly after taking office, Jaksch began renovating the monastery, for which he sold, among other things, the Rohr monastery at Wildon in order to raise money. Much of the renovation work had been completed by September 1951. In the last two years of his life, Jaksch had to struggle with illnesses. In addition, there were tensions between the Reiner monks and the monks from Vyšší Brod, which reached a climax a few months before Jaksch's death. In January 1954 Jaksch was treated for acute anemia in the hospital of the Sisters of Mercy in Linz. On February 28, 1954, the Graz Auxiliary Bishop Leo Pietsch presented him with the decree of appointment to the Episcopal Consistorial Council . His poor health prevented him from continuing in his office. Due to jaundice he was admitted to the hospital of the Barmherzigen Brüder in Graz. After returning to the monastery, Jaksch died on the morning of May 23, 1954, of sudden internal bleeding. He was buried on May 26, 1954 in the parish cemetery of Eisbach in the presence of numerous ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} see Jiři Kohout in the literature section
2. ↑ Tecelin Jaksch in the Biographia Cisterciensis

Web links

• Tecelin Jaksch in the Biographia Cisterciensis
• Entry to Tecelin Jaksch on medal online

literature

• Jiří Kohout: Tecelin Jaksch (1885–1954). Abbot of Hohenfurt in turbulent times. In: Analecta Cisterciensia 57 (2007). Pp. 99-194.
• Jiří Kohout: Tecelin Jaksch. 43. Abbot of Hohenfurt / Vyšší Brod Abbey. Univ. Dipl.-Arb., Vienna 2002, 87 pages, online at klastervyssibrod.cz .
• Martin Wild: The Abbots of Rein. In: Paulus Rappold et al. (Ed.): Stift Rein 1129–1979. 850 years of culture and belief. Rein 1979, pp. 48-62.
• Maximilian Liebmann : Purely at the time of National Socialism and after the Second World War. ibid. Rein 1979, pp. 252-269.
• Dominik Kaindl : History of the Cistercian monastery Hohenfurt in Bohemia. Hohenfurt 1930, pp. 136-139.
• Canisius Noschitzka: Tecelin Jaksch, last abbot of the Cistercian monastery Hohenfurt in the Bohemian Forest. In: Faith and Home. Monthly magazine for expellees from the Bohemian Forest. May 1984, pp. 4-6.