Memorial stone for Dr. Anton Greß is handed over

Dr. Anton Greß was born in Unterspiesheim in 1766 and died in 1799 – very young. He made a name for himself in the theological and philosophical debate during the Enlightenment by defending theology as a science. A memorial stone, which is now being erected at Erlöserplatz, commemorates this previously largely unknown son of the Unterspiesheim congregation, “who helped to determine the fate of our church in stormy times,” as the parish letter from the parish of St. Raphael states. His parents’ house was very close to Redeemer Square.

On Sunday, June 7th, district administrator, Stefan Menz, will speak at the streaming service of the parish community of St. Raphael (www.pg-st-raphael.de) to hand over the memorial stone and pay tribute to the significant son of the municipality of Unterspiesheim.

Thanks to Ms. Monika Greß, who used the former tombstone of a Greß family as a memorial stone for Dr. Anton Greß made available, as well as everyone who helped design the gravestone and the surrounding area. The inscription on the tombstone “fides moret” (faith may remain) can be both a wish and an obligation in our time – “a spiritual testament of a talented teacher and theological contender” – as the parish letter states.

According to the philosopher Immanuel Kant, Enlightenment (1720 to 1800) is the “exit of man from his self-inflicted immaturity”. The political culmination of the Enlightenment was the French Revolution, which began in 1789. was considered science, and in this context the view was taken that theology was not science.

The young scholar Anton Greß turned against this strong current. He took the view that theology – like the empirical sciences – can and must be operated according to the rules of natural human knowledge. In doing so, he defended the – quite modern – scientific-theoretical position that theology was not only committed to the “blind belief” in dogmas or council resolutions, but that its research and development had to use the principles of reason and the possibilities of human knowledge. This view was not shared by all theologians in the aftermath, but was formulated very clearly in the Second Vatican Council 200 years later.

Ordained priest in 1794

Anton Greß was born the sixth of nine children of the married couple Anna-Elisabeth and Balthasar Greß in Unterspiesheim in 1766. His talent was probably noticed by the then abbot of Ebrach, whose area of ​​responsibility at the time included Unterspiesheim. This enabled him to attend the Latin school, in November 1790 he entered the seminary in Würzburg, and in 1794 he was ordained a priest.

As a prefect of the Julianum in Würzburg, founded by Prince Bishop Julius Echter in 1607 to train young nobles, he was able to continue his theological studies. In 1796 he was already a professor of philosophy, in 1798 he received the theological doctorate under the well-known professor Franz Oberthür. He formulated his view of theology as science in the essay “Reason does not require secularization”, which Greß wrote shortly before his death in 1799.

Since he held an outstanding social position as a professor, it is all the more surprising that there is no entry about the place of his funeral in the registers of the Würzburg cemeteries in 1799. Therefore, the assumption has a certain probability that he was buried in the cemetery of his hometown Unterspiesheim, according to the current parish letter from the parish community of St. Raphael, from which much more information has been taken.

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• Unterspiesheim

• Erhard Scholl

• Familys

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• Immanuel Kant

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• Stefan Menz

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