Joseph Ludwig Colmar

Joseph Ludwig Colmar ( born June 22, 1760 Strasbourg, † December 15, 1818 in Mainz ) was the first bishop of Mainz to the end of the Archbishopric of Mainz.

Life and work

Priest in Strasbourg

Joseph Ludwig Colmar was born as the son of John Colmar language teacher and his wife Elisabeth, née Gräff and grew up in his native city of Strasbourg, where he completed his education. He attended the Royal College, began in the fall of 1776 at the University of his philosophical studies and was promoted on June 29, 1779 licentiate of philosophy. He then studied theology, was born on January 27, 1783 Baccalaureus, the same year also theological licentiate and received on 20th December priesthood.

Then he worked as a teacher at the Strasbourg School and promoted as such during the eight -year duration of its activities, in particular the study of Greek language and history. He also managed free of charge for the position of chaplain at St. Stephen and devoted himself to the pastoral care of the garrisoned in Strasbourg German regiments in the French service.

1791 Joseph Ludwig Colmar refused the oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Although he had a price on his head remained Colmar during the revolutionary reign of terror hidden in Strasbourg and went under constant danger of death, in various disguises, its priestly professions.

As a public activities since 1795 has been possible, he founded a school for young Catholics and a Catholic library. Very beneficial, he worked in those years again as a pulpit orator, especially by the apologetic lectures, which he held from 1799 to 1802 in the Strasbourg Cathedral.

Bishop of Mainz

Through the French occupation of German territories left of the Rhine also territorially congruent bishoprics were in accordance with the Concordat of 1801 between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII, in each case to the department set up seats. The old dioceses - including Mainz, Worms and Speyer - told you (in terms of its left bank, now French part ) for dissolved. The area of ​​today's Rheinhessen-Pfalz was then summarized the new French Département du Mont- Tonnerre with the city of Mainz. Coincident was the new, exclusively left bank of the United Diocese of Mainz, which united the left bank of the Rhine to the ancient bishoprics of Mainz and Worms, as well as significant portions of the left bank of the territory of the old diocese of Speyer.

Dated July 6, 1802 became Joseph Ludwig Colmar bishop of this new diocese, received on 24 August of the also newly appointed Trier Pastor Charles Mannay, in the Carmelite church at Paris, the consecration and was enthroned on 3 October of the year in Mainz. At the same time it was due to the Concordat, in the countries occupied by France German territories, the bishop Mannay already mentioned von Trier ( congruent with the Département de la Sarre ) and Bishop Marc- Antoine Berdolet in Aachen ( congruent with the two combined departments de la Roer and de Rhin -et -Moselle ) is installed. The right bank ( still German ) parts of the diocese of Mainz existed under the old Archbishop Karl Theodor von Dalberg continue for the time being, which is why his tenure with the overlaps as Archbishop of Mainz, bishop of Colmar.

In Colmar's tenure, the structuring and organization of the newly formed United Diocese of Mainz, which ranged in the southwest up to Pirmasens and Zweibrücken falls. For this purpose, but also included especially the pastoral aspects. He made ​​numerous visitations to know his diocesan personally and promoted after a period of enlightenment and national ecclesiastical efforts of his predecessor, solemn church services, brotherhoods, pilgrimages, etc., whereby the religious life of newly blossomed in a short time. Colmar founded a seminary in 1803 and appointed Bruno Franz Leopold Liebermann to the rain. It evolved to romtreuesten throughout Germany and it was there at the bishop and to the so-called Mainzer Liebermann circle. The poor and the sick, he devoted himself with great devotion. When the typhus epidemic in winter 1813, which was triggered in Mainz by the retreating, French army, after the Leipzig Battle of the Nations, Colmar used with his priests and seminarians personally, the sick and the dying, often helpless, wrapped in rags, in barns, backyards and cellars languishing.

Very worthy of the bishop made ​​by saving the already released for demolition Dome of Mainz and Speyer. Mainz Cathedral about was severely damaged during the siege of Mainz ( 1793). The building was demoted to the magazine and in 1801 finally the inventory, or what was left of it, auctioned. The birthday of Napoleon in 1804 was used to Rekonziliation of the building. Other churches, such as St. Maria ad Gradus in Mainz he could not save.

As of the end of the French occupation the territory of the former major diocese of Mainz was divided again and the now purely Bavarian diocese of Speyer newly revived in the South, the Bavarian King Maximilian I Joseph wore this bishop's throne on 24 December 1817 his estimate of Joseph Ludwig Colmar. King Max knew the bishop personally from the formerly common Strasbourg period when he himself was a colonel and commander of the Colmar pastorally cared regiment " Alsace ". This drew it - probably because of his already advanced age - the right to remain Bishop of Mainz. He advised the monarch his confidant and Vicar General Johann Jakob Humann than Speyer Pastors, however was not enforceable in the liberal Bavarian government under Prime Montgelas.

When Joseph Ludwig Colmar died in 1818, expressed his pupil, later the Speyer bishop Nikolaus von Weis (1796 - 1869):

"I have not been able to pray for the deceased, because I thought - if this father and shepherd is not a saint, then there is hardly any -. Alive so standing in front of the Spirit "

Bishop Colmar grave plate is located in the center aisle of the Mainz Cathedral.

On the 250th anniversary of Bishop Joseph Ludwig Colmar published a biography of the church historian Georg May in Mainz, under the title "Bishop Joseph Ludwig Colmar ( 1760-1818 ) as a pastor "

Medals and Decorations

Colmar was Commander of the French Legion of Honour and Commander 1st Class of the Grand Ducal Hessian Ludwig Order.

See also: Diocese of Mainz and Mainz circle.

452208
de