Wilhelm Rátz

Pastor Wilhelm Rátz

Wilhelm Rátz (born June 10, 1882 in Cservenka , Bács-Bodrog County , Austria-Hungary ; † October 20, 1952 in Preßburg, today Bratislava , Czechoslovakia ) was an Evangelical Lutheran preacher.

Life

Origin and studies

Pastor Rátz was born the son of a German elementary school teacher. After attending active in his native elementary and middle school, he came to the Evangelical Lyceum of Sopron (Sopron), where he's on June 29, 1900 high school exam with Distinction. He completed his theological studies at the Theological Academy in Bratislava and at the University of Halle ad Saale . On 25 May 1904 he was named pastor ordained . First he worked from April 1, 1904 to June 30, 1909 as a chaplain in Kisker , Neusatz and Bratislava. Because of his outstanding academic qualifications, he came to the then Theological Academy in Bratislava as a private lecturer .

Pastor in the parish in Bratislava

After Pastor Gustav Ebner (1848–1923) - after twenty years of parish activity in the German parish in Preßburg (today Bratislava) - was released into retirement in 1910, the third German pastor's post became vacant. The overwhelming majority of the parishioners elected Pastor Rátz from several applicants as the third parish priest of the parish college. On January 16, 1910, senior Carl Eugen Schmidt solemnly introduced him to his ministry.

After the collapse of the Danube Monarchy (1918) and the emergence of Czechoslovakia , the old Hungarian Evangelical Church AB, in which the German, Hungarian and Slovak parishes were united, was dissolved. In addition to the long-established German parish, an independent Slovak parish was established. Since the separation of the new Slovak from the German-Hungarian congregation in Pressburg did not seem feasible without dividing the church property, which was predominantly in German hands, there was considerable tension between the two congregations. It was thanks to the wisdom, generosity and insight of Pastor Rátz that a satisfactory agreement could be reached between the two parishes.

In addition to his actual main activity as a pastor, Wilhelm Rátz took on other tasks and offices. From 1921 he was the editor of the Kreuzkalender , which was continued as the Gustav Adolf Calendar from 1939 . The cross calendar contains many valuable contributions to the history of the Church, ward , and mission . The Evangelical Community Gazette, which he edited and published , was also in the service of the community.

In addition to his pastoral and journalistic activities, Rátz was also active in education and science. From October 1, 1935, he was appointed lecturing teacher for practical subjects ( homiletic and liturgical lectures in German) at the Evangelical Theological Faculty in Bratislava by the then Minister of Culture and Education . In the library of the Bratislava's parish he discovered the “ September Bible” from 1522. This was the first edition of Martin Luther's New Testament printed by Melchior Lotter in Wittenberg , which was only printed in very small numbers.

The time after 1945

After the end of the Second World War in 1945, the self-sufficient German Evangelical Church Community AB in Bratislava ceased to exist. The German church on the nunnery in Bratislava was taken over by the Slovak brothers in faith. The church property was confiscated and became the property of the Slovak Evangelical Church.

In this politically extremely difficult time, Rátz decided to stick with the small remaining German community that had remained in Bratislava. With his official brother, Heinrich Pröhle (who was almost blind) , he was soon allowed to celebrate German church services again, now in the small (formerly Slovak-Hungarian) church on the nunnery.

Pastor Wilhelm Rátz's grave at the Gaistor Cemetery in Pressburg (as of February 2009)

His wife Hermine nee helped to maintain church life. Cushion (born July 5, 1891 Oberschützen / Burgenland ; † 3 November 1972 Budapest ) and the remaining also in Bratislava (former) Mother Superior of the Evangelical Deaconess Motherhouse , Mathilde Billnitzer , active with. After Heinrich Pröhle died in 1950, Pastor Rátz looked after the German (and also the Hungarian) co-religionists until his death on October 20, 1952.

The Slovak Evangelical Church AB held a dignified funeral for Pastor Rátz. As the last German Lutheran pastor in Bratislava, he was laid out in front of the altar of the (former) German Great Church on the nun's train and ceremoniously consecrated by the Slovak pastors. After the funeral service with a sermon held in German by Pastor Juraj Holčík , the deceased was buried at the final resting place in the Gaistor cemetery with great sympathy from the Protestant population of Bratislava .

The series of German Evangelical Lutheran pastors in Bratislava / Pressburg , which began in 1606 with Andreas Reuss , ends with Pastor Wilhelm Rátz . He was the last of the 62 German pastors who worked in Bratislava.

literature

• History of the Evangelical Church Community AB zu Preßburg , 2 volumes, Pozsony / Preßburg 1906
• Carl Eugen Schmidt : Twenty-five years (on the 25th anniversary of Rev. Rátz's service), Evangelisches Gemeindeblatt, Preßburg, born 1935, No. 1/2, p. 18
• Evangelisches Gemeindeblatt Preßburg, born 1935, No. 7/8, p. 28
• Treumund R. (pseudonym of Prof. Dr. Roland Steinacker) .: Pastor Wilhelm Rátz died. In: Karpatenpost / Evangelischer Glaubensbote Stuttgart, born in 1952, issue 12, December 1952
• Adalbert Hudak : The Church of our Fathers , auxiliary committee for the Evang-Luth. Slovakian German, Stuttgart 1953
• Roland Steinacker / Alexy Dezidier: 350 years of the Evangelical Church in Preßburg , auxiliary committee for the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Slovak German, Stuttgart 1956
• Adalbert Hudak: The Protestant Carpathian Germans from Slovakia. In: The Captivity of Protestant Churches from the East ' Volume 2 / Issue 2, Verlag "Our Way" Düsseldorf 1972
• The last German pastor's wife of Preßburg (necrology on the death of Hermine Rátz) in Carpathian Post / Evangelischer Glaubensbote Stuttgart, born in 1972
• Anton Klipp: In memoriam Juraj Holčík in Karpatenpost / Evangelischer Glaubensbote Stuttgart, vol. 45, issue 6, June 1994
• 50 years of the Aid Committee for the Evangelical Lutheran Slovak Germans, Stuttgart 1996
• Andrej Kvas: Viliam Rátz (1882-1952). In: Evanjelická Bratislava, Bratislava (Slovak)
• Anton Klipp: The last German Protestant pastor in Preßburg (120th birthday and 50th anniversary of the death of Pastor Wilhelm Rátz). In: Karpatenjahrbuch 2002, Stuttgart 2001, vol. 53, ISBN 80-88903-24-6 , page 215 ff
• Andreas Metzl (and colleagues): Worker in God's vineyard; Life pictures of German Protestant pastors in and from Slovakia in the 20th century, Stuttgart 2004. ISBN 80-88903-63-7 , pp. 214f

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm Rátz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ After the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918, the organization of the 'Hungarian Evangelical Church AB' was destroyed and a reorganization had to be found. A number of authoritative evangelical Slovaks who were also ardent Slovak patriots wanted to create new structures as quickly as possible. That is why they asked Vavro Šrobár , the then authoritative “Minister with Authority for the Administration of Slovakia” , to take charge of  the reorganization from the state. With the ordinances of January 30 and February 7, 1919, the latter suspended the previous autonomy by dissolving the higher presbyteries and church conventions, depriving bishops, inspectors and senior citizens of their offices, organizing two church districts and setting up a general council of churches made up only of Slovaks duration. On April 2, 1919, he appointed the district church councils, episcopal administrators and inspectors, as well as the senior citizens. (see also article German Evangelical Church Community AB zu Preßburg )
2. ↑ The Slovaks have separated from the mother church with its headquarters in Budapest; see also Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovakia
3. ↑ after Andreas Metzl: Arbeiter in Weinberg Gottes, p. 214 (see literature)
4. ↑ The Kreuzkalender appeared from 1921 as the first German book calendar in Slovakia (within the newly founded Czechoslovakia). It went back to the initiative of the three German Protestant pastors from Pressburg, Senior Carl Eugen Schmidt, D. Heinrich Pröhle and Wilhelm Rátz, who also took over the editing of the calendar. The calendar was divided into three parts: a calendar, an editorial with essays, stories and poems and a practical one with references to markets and other events in Slovakia. In 1939 it was renamed the 'Gustav Adollf Calendar'. It had to stop its publication after the end of the Second World War. The cross calendar was one of the most popular readings of the German Protestant population in Slovakia in the interwar period. (quoted from Ruprecht Steinacker: The Cross Calendar in Carpathian Yearbook 1996, Stuttgart 1995 Jg. 47)