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Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > M > Manharter


MANHARTER

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A politico-religious sect which arose in Tyrol in the first half of the
nineteenth century. Its founder was a priest, Kaspar Benedict Hagleitner of
Aschau, who was the only one of the clergymen of Brixenthal to refuse to take
the oath of allegiance prescribed by Napoleon's edict of 30 May 1809, for the
ecclesiastical and secular authorities of the province of Salzburg, of which
Brixenthal was then a part. His notion was that priests who took this oath were
by that act excommunicated jointly with Napoleon. It was not long before zealous
supporters rallied to him from among Austrian sympathizers and patriots in the
Brixenthal villages of Westendorf, Brixen im Thal, Hopfgarten, Itter, and from
Unter-Innthal, principally in the villages of Wörgi and Kirchbichl. There were
two laymen also with Hagleitner at the head of this movement, Thomas Mair, a
tanner, and Hagleitner's brother-in-law, and Sebastian Manzl, the parish
magistrate of Westendorf. The latter was surnamed Manhart after his estate, the
"Untermanhartsgut", and it was from him that the sect derived its name.
Hagleitner himself lost his cure, and in 1811 went to Vienna, where he was
appointed curate in Wiener-Neustadt. He kept in touch however with his partisans
in Brixenthal, and on Tyrol being restored to Austrian rule, he was given once
more a cure in Wörgl in November, 1814. But new intrigues again resulted in his
removal the following summer. He thenceforth lived a private life in and around
Innsbruck until the summer of 1818, when he was ordered by the Government to
repair to Vienna. He was named Kaplan shortly after in Kalksburg near Vienna,
and died there as parish-priest in 1836.



The schism reached its full development at Easter, 1815, when for the first time
Manzl and his household refused to receive the sacraments from the vicar of his
home parish of Westendorf. Thenceforth Hagleitner was looked upon by the
Manharter as the only priest of that region who "had the power" to confess and
to administer Holy Communion. As a rule they no longer attended public Catholic
worship, but held independent reunions of their own. They refused even to
receive the Last Sacraments. Thus the Manharter first of all cut themselves off
from their priests, because they considered them to have been excommunicated.
They went further and proclaimed that the majority of French and German bishops
and priests, as supporters of Napoleon in the established Church, had severed
themselves from the supreme pontiff, and therefore from the Catholic Church
itself. Consequently, they were now devoid of sacerdotal powers; all of their
ecclesiastical functions were null and void; they could neither consecrate nor
absolve validly. The Manharter thus believed themselves to be the only genuine
Catholics in the land, and they professed to be true adherents of the pope. As
strictly conservative champions of traditional custom, they protested likewise
against a series of innovations which had been introduced into the Austrian
Church, against the abolition of indulgences and pilgrimages, the abrogation of
feast-days, the abolition of the Saturday fast, and the mitigation of that
prescribed for the forty days of Lent. They likewise opposed text-books recently
brought into the schools, which were not Christian in tone, and finally they
combated the vaccination of children, as an offence against faith, and for this
additional reason reproached the clergy with countenancing and supporting this
state regulation. A spell of apocalyptic extravagance took hold of the Manharter
about this period, when they united with the so-called "Michael Confraternity",
or the Order of the Knights of Michael. This was a fanatical secret society
founded in Carinthia by the visionary, Agnes Wirsinger, and by a priest, Johann
Holzer of Gmünd. Its adherents awaited the impending destruction of the wicked
by the Archangel Gabriel, at which time they, the undefiled, were to be spared
and to receive the earth in heritage. The heads of the Manharter began their
relations with this society in the autumn of 1815, and in 1817 Hagleitner
secured their formal admittance into it. One phase of this society's apocalyptic
expectations led its members to regard Napoleon as Antichrist already come upon
the earth.

In vain did the new administrator of the Archdiocese of Salzburg, Count Leopold
von Firmian, exert himself on his pastoral visitations during the summer of 1819
to convince the Manharter of their error. The latter questioned the genuineness
of his episcopal character and refused to hear anyone but the pope. The efforts
of Bernhard Galura, spiritual counsellor to the Government, remained equally
fruitless. Even punishments inflicted by the civil authorities for the holding
of secret reunions and for continued disobedience failed to accomplish any
result. The Manharter persisted in their request that they be permitted to send
a deputation to Rome to obtain a decision from the pope in person, but this the
Government refused to allow. The majority of the members of the sect were at
last brought back into the fold of the Church under the distinguished Archbishop
of Salzburg, Augustin Gruber. It is true that his endeavours to correct them in
the course of a pastoral tour made through Brixenthal in 1824, and his appeals
to them in a pastoral letter of 25 May, 1825, bore no direct fruit; but he
obtained their promise to believe in and to obey him, provided the pope himself
should declare that he was their lawful bishop. Archbishop Gruber then secured
leave from the emperor for Manzl, Mair, and Simon Laiminger, to make the journey
to Rome with an interpreter. They started in September, 1825, were received
affectionately in the Eternal City, and, by order of the Holy Father, were given
a long and exhaustive course of instruction by the Camaldolese abbot, Mauro
Capellari (afterwards Gregory XVI). Finally, on 18 December, they were received
in private audience by Leo XII, who confirmed everything to them and received
their submission. The three deputies returned home in January, 1826, appeared
before the archbishop, and declared to him their allegiance. Two canons, sent
into Brixenthal as representatives of the archbishop, received the profession of
allegiance of the remaining Manharter. however, while this brought back into the
Church the majority of the sect, which disappeared entirely from Brixenthal, a
certain minority in Innthal, led by a fanatical woman, Maria Sillober of
Kirchbichl, refused to submit and continued to persist in their sectarianism.
These fanatics extended their opposition even to the pope himself, declaring
that Leo XII, having set himself in contradiction to Pius VII, was not a lawful
pope, and that the Holy See was for the time vacant. Thus the sect endured still
a few dozen years with a restricted following until at last it disappeared
completely with the death of its last adherents.




SOURCES

FLIR, Die Manharter. Ein Beitrag zur Gesch. Tirols im 19, Jahrh. (Innsbruck,
1852).


ABOUT THIS PAGE

APA citation. Lauchert, F. (1910). Manharter. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New
York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09590a.htm

MLA citation. Lauchert, Friedrich. "Manharter." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol.
9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910.
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09590a.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Douglas J. Potter.
Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, Censor.
Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.

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