Thomas Spreiter

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Father Thomas Spreiter OSB (photo from 1900)

Thomas Spreiter , OSB (born December 28, 1865 in Regensburg as Franz Xaver Spreiter ; † January 27, 1944 in Vryheid , South Africa ) was a German missionary benedictine and bishop . He was one of the first Benedictine monks to work in German East Africa and later South Africa. He was Apostolic Vicar of the Apostolic Vicariate Dar es Salaam in German East Africa and of the Apostolic Vicariate Eshowe .

Life

Childhood and early years

Franz Xaver Spreiter was born into a deeply religious middle-class Catholic family. Early on he showed an interest in missionary activity, but no order could become missionary during the times of the Kulturkampf . However, the Benedictine visionary Andreas Amrhein had just founded his St. Benedict Mission Society and opened an institution in Reichenbach not far from Regensburg. There Spreiter began his novitiate on September 29, 1886 . The facility was housed in a former Benedictine monastery and the first few years were characterized by poverty and hard work. In addition, Spreiter became Amrhein's personal secretary. In 1887 the young community moved to the Sankt Ottilien monastery , where Spreiter made his vows on February 2, 1888 and assumed the religious name Thomas. On July 28, 1897 he was ordained a priest .

First mission trip

The back of a prayer card signed by Thomas Spreiter

In 1900 Spreiter traveled to Zanzibar . The Benedictines of Sankt Ottilien worked there since 1888. In 1905 he led the missionary work until the beginning of the Maji Maji uprising , in the course of which Bishop Cassian Spiß and four other bishops were killed. When the mission work and his life were threatened, Spreiter fled and returned to Europe.

Second mission trip

After his return, Spreiter was appointed apostolic vicar on March 13, 1906 , succeeding Bishop Spiess. At the same time he was appointed titular bishop of Thenae . The episcopal ordination by the bishop of Augsburg Maximilian von Lingg took place on May 1st, 1906 in Sankt Ottilien; Co-consecrator was the Vicar Apostolic of Zanzibar Emil August Allgeyer . In the same year Spreiter returned to Africa to oversee all missionary and educational activities in his vicariate. To this end, he made an annual trip through his mission area. This meant that he was on the road for up to six months at a time, covering a distance of about 1,500 kilometers on foot.

After the outbreak of World War I , all missionary activities had to be interrupted. Spreiter was placed under house arrest in Dar es Salaam until 1920 and had to travel back to Germany on November 24, 1920 and give up his post in Zanzibar.

Third mission trip

On August 27, 1921, Spreiter was appointed the first Apostolic Prefect of the Apostolic Prefecture of Zululand , which was newly founded from the Apostolic Vicariate Natal . In 1922, with the help of other German missionaries, he founded the Inkamana Benedictine Abbey . Three years later, on January 26, 1924, he was called to serve as the first Vicar Apostolic of the renamed Eshowe Apostolic Vicariate . He has been described as "unyielding and uncompromising". He retired on May 14, 1943 and died on January 27, 1944 in Inkamana Abbey. He was also buried there.

Bone finds

During Spreiter's time in Zanzibar, Werner Janensch and Edwin Hennig carried out their expedition to Tendaguru . On May 30, 1910, Spreiter visited the camp, where he met with Hennig. Spreiter showed him a bone fragment that he had found in a village near the Mbalawala plateau and another from a village west of Kilwa Kivinje. These finds proved that dinosaur bones could be found hundreds of kilometers from Tendaguru, which was the original destination of the expedition.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Godfrey Sieber: Thomas Spreiter (1865–1944), bishop in East Africa (1906–1920) and South Africa (1921–1944) . In: Godfrey Sieber, Cyrill Schäfer (Hrsg.): Resistance and mission: Festschrift . EOS Verlag, St. Ottilien 2003, p. 345-350 ( online [accessed December 16, 2010]). Online ( Memento of the original from February 20, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.inkamana.org
  2. ^ A b Charles George Herbermann: The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, discipline, and History of the Catholic Church . R. Appleton, New York 1914, pp. 85 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ↑ a b Entry on Thomas (Franz Xaver) Spreiter on catholic-hierarchy.org ; Retrieved January 5, 2017.
  4. ^ Frieder Ludwig: Church and state in Tanzania: Aspects of changing relationships, 1961-1994 . Brill, 1999, ISBN 90-04-11506-4 , pp. 23 ( Google Book ).
  5. ^ Entry to Archdiocese of Dar-es-Salaam on catholic-hierarchy.org ; Retrieved January 5, 2017.
  6. ^ Philippe Denis: The Dominican friars in Southern Africa: a social history, 1577-1990 . Brill, 1998, ISBN 90-04-11144-1 , pp. 151 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  7. ↑ Sieber (1995), p. 389.
  8. ↑ Sieber (1995), p. 387
  9. ^ Gerhard Meier: African dinosaurs unearthed: the Tendaguru expeditions . Indiana UP, 2003, ISBN 0-253-34214-7 , pp. 55 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
personal data
SURNAME Spreiter, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Spreiter, Franz Xaver
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Roman Catholic bishop
DATE OF BIRTH December 28, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH regensburg
DATE OF DEATH January 27, 1944
Place of death Vryheid , South Africa