Augustin Pacha
Augustin Pacha (* November 26, 1870 in Moritz field, Banat, Kingdom of Hungary, † November 4, 1954 in Timisoara, Banat, Romania ) was a banatschwäbischer Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Timişoara and church leaders. He was known as " Swabians bishop" and "people's bishop".
Life
Youth and studies
Augustin Pacha was born the twelfth of thirteen children of the shoemaker Marian Pacha and his wife Elisabetha, born Halsdorfer, in Moritz field in today's Romania. Most of his siblings died in the first years of life from various diseases such as smallpox and diphtheria. Only three of his siblings survived the father. His older brother was the Abtpfarrer Stefan Pacha.
From 1876 to 1881 he attended the elementary school in Moritz field. High school student, he was from 1881 to 1887 in Ketch Kemet and Szeged and 1887-1889 in Timisoara, where he received his high school diploma. In Timisoara, he studied theology from 1889 to 1893.
Priest career
On August 12, 1893, he received from the wire Chan Bishop Alexander III. Cserneki és Tarkeői Dessewfy in the Cathedral Church of Timisoara ordination. From 1893 to 1894 he was chaplain in Mezőkovácsháza. As he besides German, Hungarian and Latin also dominated the Romanian language, he was from 1896 to 1898 confessor and preacher in Bucharest and Braila. In 1900 he became secretary of the Bishop of Csanád and thus made several trips to Italy and Austria. In this role, he won a deep insight into the ecclesiastical administration.
In 1906 he became honorary canon and the consistory, and received from the Pope the Order "For Church and Pope ". In 1911 he was Chancellor of the diocese until 1923 and real canon of Chan vein diocese. On August 26, 1926, he consecrated the Banatia in Timisoara, which became the largest German cultural center of Southeast Europe. In 1927 he was appointed titular bishop of Lebedo and consecrated on 15 May Apostolic Administrator in Timisoara cathedral.
On June 5, 1930 by Pope Pius XI. decided to raise the Tschanad - Timisoara Governorship to a bishopric. Thus, the " Timisoara Diocese " was founded. Augustin Pacha was appointed on 16 October 1930, Bishop of the Diocese of Timisoara and enthroned on 29 November in the Cathedral Church of Timisoara.
He consecrated several churches of the diocese. For example, in 1925 in Marienfeld, 1928 in his home town field Moritz, 1930 in Hatzfeld and Resita, 1933 in Lugoj and the monastery church in Temeswar -Josefstadt, 1938 in Timişoara, Elizabeth City and 1939 in Orschowa.
The 1930s and 1940s
1930 appointed the Romanian king Augustin Pacha Grand Officer of the Romanian Crown Order. From 1939 to 1944 Pacha was a senator in the Senate Bucharest.
During the 1930s and 1940s the National Socialist German Reich became more and more influence on the structure of the Romanian Germans what the existing ecclesiastical structure, especially in the school system weakened.
Arrest and death
In the autumn of 1944, Soviet troops overran the Banat. Especially after 1947 lost the Roman Catholic Church on a contractual basis; Clergy were arrested, organizations banned and confiscated possessions.
On 18 July 1950, the Romanian security police arrested the bishop Augustin Pacha, and brought him to the prison of Sighet. A year later, he was taken to the detention center of the Interior Ministry to Bucharest. Together with 9 other defendants, he was convicted in a show trial, which was held from 10 to September 17, 1951 before a military tribunal in Bucharest. Pacha was accused of spying for the Vatican. Same time, a currency offenses. In addition, he was accused to have passively accepted the growing influence of the Nazis and adoption of the confessional Catholic schools of the Banat.
Pacha himself gave to loudly process records to have been in February 1934 in Berlin to ask Hitler to curb directed against the Catholic Church propaganda of his followers in the Banat. Hitler had promised to honor the request of the bishop. He spent his detention exclusively in Sighet. There he was dismissed nearly blind and seriously ill in the spring of 1954 and lived until his death in Timisoara.
Pacha died on November 4, 1954 in Timişoara from the effects of surgery and was buried in the crypt of the cathedral.
Origin
The grandparents and great-grandparents of the mother Augustin Pacha were among the colonists by Moritz field and came from the Palatinate, the Trierischer and Bavaria 1786-1796 Banat.
Father Augustin Pacha was born in Petersdorf in Hradec Kralove in Bohemia and moved in 1838 due to difficult economic circumstances with his parents and three siblings from the home by Moritz field.