Joseph Ignatius Ritter (12 April 1787, in

Schweinitz Schweinitz is a village and a former municipality in the Jerichower Land district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous coun ...

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...

– 5 January 1857, in Breslau) was a German historian. He pursued his philosophical and theological studies at the University of Breslau, was ordained priest in 1811, and for several years was engaged in pastoral work.

Biography

An annotated translation of

St. John Chrysostom John Chrysostom (; gr, Ἰωάννης ὁ Χρυσόστομος; 14 September 407) was an important Early Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of ab ...

's treatise on the priesthood not only obtained for him the doctorate in theology, but also attracted the attention of the Prussian ministry, which in 1823 named him ordinary professor of church history and patrology at the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...

. Here he made the acquaintance of George Hermes, and became favorably disposed towards his system. In 1830 he was named professor and canon in Breslau. As administrator of this

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, pro ...

(1840–43), he abandoned his earlier Hermesian tendencies for a staunch Catholic policy, notably in the question of mixed marriages. Later he published tracts defending the Church against the attacks of Johannes Ronge, the founder of the German Catholics. His principal writings which bear on church history and

canon law Canon law (from grc, κανών, , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its members. It is th ...

are: *''Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte'' (Elberfeld and Bonn, 1826–33; sixth edition by Ennen, Bonn, 1862) *''Irenicon oder Briefe zur Förderung des Friedens zwischen Kirche u. Staat'', Leipzig, 1840; *''Der Capitularvicar'', Münster, 1842; *''Geschichte der Diöcese Breslau'', Breslau, 1845. *With J. W. J. Braun he brought out a new edition of Pellicia's work, ''De Christianae ecclesiae politia'', Cologne, 1829–38.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ritter, Joseph Ignatius 1787 births 1857 deaths 19th-century German historians History of Catholicism in Germany Academic staff of the University of Bonn German male non-fiction writers