Thomas Niggl (Benedictine)

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Thomas Niggl OSB (* as Georg Niggl on April 28, 1922 in Murnau ; † December 10, 2011 in Ettal ) was a German Benedictine monk and abbot of Weltenburg Abbey on the Danube.

biography

Thomas Niggl, son of a blacksmith, attended the Benedictine high school in Ettal . As a pupil in the 7th grade at the time, he was drafted into the news replacement battery on October 1, 1941 as a radio operator and telephone operator. Initially still in Munich, he was summoned to the Russian campaign on December 27, 1941. On October 21, 1944, he was seriously injured by a bullet through his jaw in Filipow, Masuria. After hospital stays, he was released from American captivity on July 5, 1945 and entered the Ettal Benedictine abbey on September 15, 1945 . After professing in 1946, he studied Catholic theology and philosophy as an alumnus at the St. Benedict College of the Plankstetten Abbey in Eichstätt and made a solemn profession on October 2, 1949. On 29 June 1950 he received from Cardinal Michael Faulhaber , the ordination . After working as prefect and teacher at Scheyern Abbey , Thomas Niggl studied classical philology , history and Byzantine studies at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and received his doctorate with a thesis on the patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos of Constantinople. He worked as a high school teacher in Munich and Ettal, most recently as director of studies for Latin, Greek and history.

In 1961 Niggl was elected abbot of Schäftlarn Abbey , but refused the election and became prior of Ettal in the same year . Since 1973 he was the prior administrator of Weltenburg Abbey . In 1976 he was elected abbot there, on July 10, 1976 benediziert and prevailed in this post until 1995. In 1985 he was appointed by the Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss with the Bavarian Order of Merit awarded. He took his retirement home in his home monastery in Ettal, where he also died at the age of 89. His grave is in the monastery crypt of the Abbey Church of St. George in Weltenburg.

Theological and political work

Following his motto Per Mariam ad Jesum - Through Mary to Jesus - his thinking and acting were shaped by Marians throughout his life. Niggl has been involved in the controversial Engelwerk since the 1960s . The proclamation of the message of Fatima was a concern of Niggl. Bishop Rudolf Graber of Regensburg and Prelate Georg Ratzinger were closely connected to him and his theology. Since 1995 he has been the curate of the Militia Sanctae Mariae eV - Order of the Knights of Our Lady. As abbot he fought for a new ecclesiastical Marian dogma, in which Mary should be defined as the “ co-redeemer ”.

In 2003, Niggl supported the right-wing extremist German study community in an article in the quarterly magazine of the Catholic Scouts of Europe (KPE) by adopting and disseminating the DSG's political theses on Germany.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heiner Boberski : The angel work . Otto Müller Verlag, Salzburg 1993, p. 235
  2. ↑ Catholic Fundamentalism: Scouts on the wrong track. (PDF; 82 kB) ARD Monitor (July 22, 2004), archived from the original on September 8, 2012 ; Retrieved September 23, 2009 .
  3. ↑ Thomas Niggl: Germany's future. In: Pathfinder of Mary, 2nd quarter 2003, p. 3 f
  4. ↑ Urtext: Felix Buck , Albrecht Jebens , Rolf Kosiek , Uwe Rheingans , Günter Poser , Edmund Sawall , Walter Staffa : German Study Community: Confession to the German People. ( Memento of December 10, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ State Office for the Protection of the Constitution Baden-Württemberg : Verfassungsschutzbericht 2003, p. 95 f
personal data
SURNAME Niggl, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Niggl, Georg (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Benedictine monk and old abbot of Weltenburg Abbey on the Danube
DATE OF BIRTH April 28, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Murnau
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 2011
Place of death Ettal