Peter Henry Lemke

Peter ( Balthasar ) Henry Lemke, OSB ( Order of name Henry, also Lemcke, born July 27, 1799 in Rehna; † November 29, 1882 in Carrolltown, Pennsylvania ) was a German-born Roman Catholic priest and missionary in the United States. He was the pioneer of the Benedictines in North America.

Life

Peter Henry Lemke was born on July 27, 1799, the youngest of five children of Johann Martin Friedrich people Lemcke, Stadtaktuarius (City Secretary) in Rehna, and Charlotta Friederica Sophia born in Rehna Jürgens and baptized a Protestant on 1 August 1799. His grandfather Joachim Frederick Jurgens (1721-1814), cantor, organist and teacher in Rehna, Lemke owed ​​the foundation of his life, the relationship with God.

After visiting the cathedral school in Schwerin he began in April 1819 to study theology in Rostock, how his brother Emil to become a Protestant pastor. After the end of his studies, he took up a position as tutor to the landlord Menno Dietrich radish in Harkensee in Dassow, from where he was helping the pastor of Dassow the ministry.

In 1823 he emigrated to Regensburg. Here he learned the Catholic life know and was received into the Catholic Church on April 21, 1824. After mitgelebt some years at a Catholic priest, and after completing the necessary studies, he was ordained on April 11, 1826 by Bishop Johann Michael Sailer of Regensburg as a priest. He then worked for several years as a pastor in Lower Bavaria and Regensburg. In 1829 he was a Bavarian citizen.

In 1831 he went as chaplain at Stift Neuburg at Heidelberg. Here he met Clemens Brentano, who gave him the impetus to go for counseling to North America. On August 20, 1834, he arrived in New York. There followed years of pastoral care in Philadelphia, Ebensburg and Loretto, Pennsylvania. Here he became the successor of the Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin priest prince. In 1836 he founded the town of Carrolltown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania.

1845 Lemke took a trip to the homeland. In Metten monastery he enlisted Benedictine to come to North America. The following year, Father Boniface Wimmer arrived with 18 candidates, who founded the monastery of St. Vincent in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Soon after his return from the homeland Lemke was pastor in 1848 in Reading, Pennsylvania. A little later he entered the Benedictine Order and laid on 21 February 1853, the solemn religious profession. His religious name was Father Henry.

Lemke 1855 traveled to Kansas. He was the first Benedictine, who lived in Kansas. Here he prepared the foundation of the monastery of St. Benedict in Atchison (Kansas ), which was in 1857. After his return from there Henry Lemke undertook his last journey into the German homeland. He attended, among others, the kings of Saxony and Bavaria and numerous monasteries and bishops, to solicit support for the Catholic Church in North America. In Munster, he gave the Coppenrath his book life and work of Prince Demetrius Gallitzin in pressure.

After his return was Henry Lemke pastor of St. Michael Parish in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he remained active until his retirement in 1877. Spent his life at Henry Lemke in his city Carrolltown, where he died on 29 November 1882.