Nicolaus von Weis
Nikolaus von Weis ( born March 8, 1796 in Rimlingen (Lorraine ), † December 13, 1869 in Speyer ) was from 1842 to 1869 Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Speyer. He was an important personality of the reconstruction of the diocese after the period of secularization.
Biography
Nikolaus von Weis was born in 1796 on the Schönhof in the community Rimlingen in Lorraine. His mother did not want her child was baptized by a priest who had taken the oath to the French Revolution Constitution. Therefore, his father, a shepherd grabbed the newborn at night in his shepherd pocket, brought out the Godfather in Obergailbach from. They marched up to the church of Niedergailbach, where he was baptized.
His early years were spent in the parish of St. Nicholas Habkirchen. After the death of his father in 1802 the family moved to Altheim. There and in Niedergailbach and Ormesweiler visited Nicholas primary school and received instruction in Latin. His schooling was interrupted again and again because of the poverty of his family. From 1811 to 1818 he attended high school at the Episcopal seminary in Mainz, then studied at the local seminar Rain Bruno Franz Leopold Liebermann. Weis was consecrated on August 22, 1818 in Mainz, by Bishop Joseph Ludwig Colmar priest and celebrated his First Mass in the Church of St. Stephen, with him, " the local worthy pastor Johann Peter Merz" assisted. Weis and Merz knew each other from the common Mainzer time and remained throughout her life " friends intimately ," as Franz Xaver Remling, the historian of the diocese of Speyer, in his biography of the bishop expressed ( Volume 1, page 15).
During his studies, he had the Alsatian group called the Mainzer circle around Andreas Räss, who later became bishop of Strasbourg connected. Together with him he founded in 1821, the monthly magazine The Catholic. For three years, Nicholas Weis was a teacher at the Mainz seminar works. In 1821 he received the parish Dudenhofen. 1822 appointed him the theological faculty of the University of Würzburg for Doctor hc.
1822 Cathedral Chapter of the Diocese of Speyer was rebuilt and Nikolaus von Weis became the canon. On January 1, 1839, he received the Knight's Cross of the Order of St. Michael. In 1842 he was employed by King Ludwig I of Bavaria as a bishop and on July 10, 1842, consecrated bishop by Archbishop Lothar Anselm Freiherr von Gebsattel in Munich.
On December 13, died in 1869 Bishop Nikolaus von Weis and was buried in the cathedral at Speyer two days later. The published in print Funeral sermon he cathedral minister Dietrich Becker. In his obituary was often referred to as the ideal of a Catholic bishop; one of the relevant passages read:
" And in the remotest and poorest villages of the mountain, the children who have seen him will remember until in her extreme old age to him and will believe every bishop had to look like him: so complete was the image and essence of the the departed. "
Work
Nikolaus von Weis was active as a writer, along with Andreas Räss. They expanded and translated several apologetic, dogmatic and hagiographic works, brought a German edition of Butler's Lives of the Saints out ( 24 volumes, 1821-1827 ) and translated sermons from the French. They founded the monthly magazine The Catholic and gave them out from 1821 to 1841. You startled it - according to the spirit of the times - sometimes even before sharpest polemic not come back, such as in the printed there tirade against Heinrich Heine and the " Young Germany ".
Even as a canon he built in 1839 in Speyer, the teacher training seminar again, the promotion of education was to him a big concern.
During his time as bishop, he devoted himself tirelessly to the organizational, social and spiritual reconstruction of his diocese. He founded in 1852 the Institute of the School Sisters of St. Dominic and confirmed in 1857, the founding of the Poor Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Family in Pirmasens by Paul Josef Nardini. In Landstuhl, he founded a children's home.
The pilgrimages he brought to new heights, in particular, he promoted the pilgrimage to Maria Rosenberg in forest Fischbach. The chapel had been closed in 1822 by the Bavarian State alleged abuse and was opened in 1844 again.
His efforts to found a theological seminary in Speyer, was not supported by the Bavarian government. In June 1844, the Bishop visited the synagogue on Inge home, which was a significant for those times closer to the Jewish population.
Opened in 1845 Bishop of Weis in Ludwigshafen- Oggersheim a convent of Friars Minor for the care of the local pilgrimage.
Nikolaus von Weis founded in 1853 the first Dombauverein in Speyer. During his tenure, the cathedral from 1846 to 1853 was inside painted by Johann von Schraudolph and the west facade renovation until 1858.
The Speyer priest Dr. Jacob Weis and his great-nephew canon prelate Dr. Norbert Weis both come from the family of Bishop Weis.
Honors
Because of its proverbial hospitality and his charity, the Speyer priest writer Conrad of Bolanden 1864 refers to him in his novel The Enlightened as the "guest host of the Golden Cross, which the poor call their father. "
In Speyer a road and two schools ( Nikolaus von Weis -Gymnasium, Nikolaus von Weis - boarding secondary school ) are named after him. In Landstuhl a road and the " Bishop of Weis Foundation " with three organizations ( private vocational school " Nazareth House " children's home St. Nicholas and Bishop - of -Weis School ) named after him.
Bishop Anton Schlembach used during his episcopate the crosier, the Nikolaus von Weis had been given in 1867 to his bishop anniversary.