Franz Pfanner

Franz Pfanner (1825 – 24 May 1909), also anglicised as Francis Pfanner, was an Austrian Trappist abbot and founder of Mariannhill Monastery in South Africa and the Mariastern Abbey in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Servant of God

Franz Pfanner
Abbot of Mariannhill Abbey
In office1885–1893
Orders
RankPriest
Personal details
Born1825
Langen bei Bregenz, Austrian Empire
Died24 May 1909(1909-05-24) (aged 83–84)
Emaus, Cape Colony (now South Africa)
DenominationCatholic Church

Life

Born to Francis Anton Pfanner and Anna Maria Fink, in 1825, Franz Pfanner attended high schools in Feldkirch and humanistic studies at Innsbruck. Later, he studied philosophy in Padua (1845) and theology in Brixen (1846). In 1848, he battled tuberculosis. On 27 July 1850, he was appointed parish priest at Haselstauden, near Dornbirn.

In 1859, he was appointed an Austrian army chaplain in the Italian campaign against Napoleon III, but the war was over before he could take up his appointment. After serving as confessor to the Sisters of Mercy at Agram for several years and operating a ministry in the Lepoglava prison, he went to Rome (in 1862 for the canonization of the Japanese martyrs), where he came into contact with the Trappists for the first time. Awaiting his bishop's permission to join this order, he went on a pilgrimage to Palestine in 1863. On 9 October he enters the Trappist Priory of Mariawald (Germany). He was later professed at the priory and made sub-prior. He returned to Rome in 1866, where he reorganized the well-known monastery at Tre Fontane. In 1867, he set up a new Trappist monastery in Austria (Donaumonarchy). He also conceived the idea of a foundation in Turkey. In 1869, despite serious difficulties he opened the monastery of Mariastern in Bosnia, near Banja Luka, which was raised to the status of an abbey in 1879.

In 1879, Bishop James David Ricards of the Eastern Vicariate of the Capeof Good Hope was in Europe, seeking Trappists to evangelize the local Africans. At the General Chapter of Sept-Fons (France), Ricards of Grahamstown (South Africa), made an appeal for a Trappist foundation in the area of the Sunday River. Pfanner stated "If no one will go, I will go."[1][2] At the end of July 1880, he arrived at Dunbrody, the site purchased by Bishop Ricards, arriving with a team of about 30 monks from Mariastern. Due to drought, winds and baboons, he declared the site unsuitable after a trial of several years. With the permission of Bishop Charles Jolivet, O.M.I., of the Natal Vicariate, in December 1882, he purchased the Land Colonization Company a part of the Zoekoegat farm, near Pinetown. The monastery of Mariannhill was built here. In 1884 there were the first public baptism of African persons.

Finding the need of a sisterhood to teach girls, he founded the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood[2] in 1885.[3][4][5]

On 27 December 1882 the Monastery of Mariannhill was founded near Durban. In 1885, Mariannhill was created an abbey, and Pfanner elected as the first mitred abbot. In 1898, it became the largest Christian monastery in the world, with 285 monks.[6] In 1890, he was appointed Vicar General of the Order for South Africa. In 1893 he resigned his prelacy. In 1894, at the outstation of Lourdes Mission, together with Bro. Xavier, Pfanner took up residence at the mission station of Emaus, where he remained until his death in 1909.[7]

Formation of the Missionary Order of Mariannhill

In 1906 Pope Pius X approved the constitutions of the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood.[3] In 1909, a few months before Pfanner's death, the Holy See, at the petition of the Trappists of Mariannhill, made a considerable change in their status. The Cistercian Rule in its rigour, for which Abbot Pfanner was most zealous, was found to be an obstacle to missionary development in some particulars. Hence they were given a milder rule and separated from the Trappist Order by official decree. They became a missionary order in their own right, the Missionary Order of Mariannhill.[2]

Notes
  1. Profile of Abbot Pfanner, emausheritagecentre.org.za; accessed 21 August 2015.
  2. Denny-Dimitriou, Julia (Nov 23, 2010). "How one monk changed the South African landscape". OSV Newsweekly. Retrieved June 26, 2016.
  3. "History". Sisters of The Precious Blood. 2016. Retrieved June 26, 2016.
  4. "Who We Are". Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood. Retrieved June 26, 2016.
  5. "Past and Present". Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood. Archived from the original on 2011-07-08. Retrieved June 26, 2016.
  6. Richard Elphick, T. R. H. Davenport, Christianity in South Africa: A Political, Social, and Cultural History (1997), p. 199.
  7. Profile of Abbot Pfanner, emausheritagecentre.org.za; accessed 21 August 2015.

References
  • A. L. Balling (1980), Abbot Francis Pfanner – A Missionary Who Made History.
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