The Apostle of South Africa

There it was. Fr. Francis and Br. Zacharias were given a bare three months to make a new foundation in totally unknown territory! But they were monks under obedience and would do their level best. The first thing they did was to split company: Zachariah continued to solicit support and vocations for the new monastery and Francis went to Vorarlberg from where he would travel to the Balkans. So one fine day a Trappist monk appeared in Langen-Hub to the surprise of everyone. His mother, however, soon realized that her son needed assistance and without further ado she paid his ticket to Hungary. There his search for a site began in earnest. Success, however, was not in coming. So he crossed into Croatia, where he could at least hope for free bed and board with the Mercy Sisters whom he had abruptly left four years earlier. If he had thought that Croatia would put no obstacles in the way of a monastic foundation, he was mistaken, for even that Catholic country held next to no chance.

The going was rough and traveling, an uninterrupted hardship.

Abbot Francis:

“We lived as it were between heaven and earth and I am sure that most gypsy families were better off than we. The only advantage we had was that we travelled light, unencumbered by personal effects. Not that Mariawald was too poor to provide us with more, no, it was simply the rule. A Trappist was given no traveling coat and only very rarely a hat or a second vest, underpants or anything like that. Common underwear was distributed every fortnight; habits and scapulars were washed twice a year. We had two habits: a coarse (hairy) one for winter and a second hand one for summer. Socks were sewn from thick cloth. Instead of boots we usually wore wooden shoes and leather ones only for church. It was a rule which also applied to the Prior. So it simply did not occur to us to ask for more.”

While Br. Zacharias promoted the new foundation, Fr. Francis inspected one estate or manor after another, hoping against hope to find something suitable and affordable. To complicate matters, two more Brothers were sent from Mariawald: Jacob, the smith, and Benedict, the cook. But when checking their decrees he found that they were issued for Oelenberg, not Agram. So he sent them back to get themselves proper papers lest by their disobedience they jeopardize the new foundation. However, the two Brothers had no desire to go to Oelenberg where Abbot Ephrem might hold them back and never let them join the new foundation. Could Fr. Francis not let them go somewhere else? After due thought he sent them to Vienna to make themselves useful with the Capuchins and from there apply for fresh letters of obedience.

“Big Bang”

The first mandate of the pioneers had not yet expired when Prior Scheby extended their leave of absence by three more months. If this surprised them they were even more puzzled when another letter arrived on the heel of the first one. This one was not official but private and written by Abbot Ephrem, who ordered Br. Zacharias to come to Oelenberg and advised Fr. Francis to return to the world. This is what according to Abbot Francis’ Memoirs he wrote: “My dear Fr. Francis, you may not return to the monastery. I forbid you to return to either Mariawald or Oelenberg. Instead, go back to the world where you can still do a lot of good. I gladly provide you with a letter of reference to any bishop to whom you may wish to apply.”

Dumbstruck at this sudden turn of events, Fr. Francis did not know what to do. Years later he explained:

“The abbot’s order was tantamount to asking me to break my vow of stability. How could a superior, any superior, leave alone the highest superior of our Congregation, because that is what Ephrem was, act like that? I prayed and reflected, reflected and prayed. Finally, I put the case before the very best canonist of the day, none other than my former professor, Dr. Joseph Fessler. He had become vicar general of Feldkirch and then Bishop of St. Poelten in which capacity he was appointed secretary general to the Vatican Council. – The one thing about which I was certain was that I would never go back to the diocesan clergy. I had become a Trappist and a Trappist I wished to remain.”

Fessler replied at once. He could not deal with the case personally, he explained, but he would refer Fr. Francis to a competent authority in Rome. This was good advice. Fr. Francis and the Brothers Zachariah, Jacob and Benedict, who had meanwhile received proper papers, left for the Eternal City. They arrived on New Year’s Eve 1868 and reported to the Trappist procurator general who resided at the French National Church of St. Louis overlooking Piazza Navona. Abbot Francis Regis11 gave them accommodation, listened to their story and promised to do everything in his power to assist them. The Brothers might chop wood for him, but Fr. Francis would need to stay by himself to write an official letter of complaint – in Latin. He hired a room for him at the German College dell’Anima, where by God’s gracious Providence his host was Rector Msgr. Gassner, another Vorarlberger!

The story of four stranded Trappists soon made its round in the City. The German curial Cardinal August von Reisach heard of it and offered to mediate. Before long, Pope Pius IX sent them to Tre Fontane.12 The year was 1868, the 18th centenary of the Beheading of St. Paul in the very ruins of Tre Fontane. Flocks of pilgrims were expected to pour in for the occasion and someone had to be on hand to show them around. So on 18 February 1868, the would-be founders from Mariawald left Rome. For the next eight months they carted away the debris that had accumulated in the sacred places, cultivated a garden and in general got things ready for the centenary. With the Brothers working outside, Fr. Francis was porter and interpreter. Several times he sent Br. Zacharias to the cardinal to enquire about their case, but each time the answer was that this was Rome; things were done the Roman way and they should be patient. Abbot Francis tells us that once they went on an excursion to Subiaco, and it is not hard to guess what their purpose was. Surely they wanted to ask Saint Benedict, patriarch also of the Cistercians, to intercede for them in their difficult situation. But would it be too farfetched to suggest that they also needed to breathe fresher air than they got in the deadly Campagna? After all, malaria had already killed Br. Benedict, the cook.

Pfanners Memoirs recount a strange incident. One day while he was working in the garden during the time of siesta, a silver-haired man stood at the outer iron-gate.

“He kept looking at me but I took no notice of him. Annoyed, he shouted to me, ‘Why are you wasting your time here? Go to Turkey! There is more work there for you than here!’ – Now it was my turn to be annoyed. What business did that old man have to meddle with me? I turned around to shoo him away but did not see him anymore. Where was he? Gone, and not a trace of him! Strange, I thought, very strange! Only much later, when I was laying a road for our monastery in Bosnia (then part of Turkey), did I remember him again: the beggar of Tre Fontane.”

Finally, on 17 July (1868), Fr. Francis was summoned to the cardinal. The case had been adjudicated in their favour and they were free to continue with the foundation. He handed him a decree of authorization, this time issued by the competent Vatican office, and wished him well. The three Trappists were overjoyed and intoned the Te Deum! After slaving away for nearly eight months at Tre Fontane they could not wait to leave. They had drained the swampy ground and started to plant eucalyptus trees to suck up the stagnant water. The favour they thus did future generations was not forgotten. The monastery of Franciscan Conventual Friars Minor across the road from Tre Fontane installed a plaque in their grounds to the memory of “Francis Pfanner, Trappist”.

The three monks celebrated their last Mass in the ancient ruins and then called on Procurator Francis Regis. After all, this good man – “one of the kindest I have ever met” – had been instrumental in making their sojourn in Rome both possible and profitable.

Before they left the City for good, Fr. Francis submitted their plans to the Holy Father: they would continue to look for an estate, large enough to build a monastery for approx. two hundred monks! That number, he stated, was not unrealistic for they were already receiving applications from Bavaria, Prussia, Baden, Hungary, Croatia and other parts of Europe. Therefore they would begin to admit candidates as soon as they were settled. They had collected enough money and the cardinal of Agram had graciously bid them welcome.

They embarked at Trieste and returned to Agram where they were welcomed again by the Mercy Sisters. However, things did not turn out as they had hoped. National sentiment in the Austrian Crown land was even less favourable to a religious foundation than before. Its citizens were clamouring for independence and foreigners, especially Austrians, were hated. Accordingly, the parliament, newly constituted in May 1868, turned their application down in its first session. It was a hard blow and one that made them ask what the future had in store for them. Closing the door on them in Croatia, would God open another? Certain signs pointed in the direction of Bosnia.

V.

The Cross and the Crescent

The Beginnings of Mariastern in Turkish Bosnia

By the summer of the following year, 1868, the small band of Trappists at Agram was tired of living like restless wanderers. Fr. Francis made a last and desperate attempt to gain a foothold and the much desired stability near Banjaluka (Luke’s Bath) in Bosnia. There was reason to hope for success though negotiations were tedious and he needed all the diplomacy and caution he could muster.

Abbot Francis:

“In order not to draw undue attention from Turkish officials I covered my habit with a trench coat which reached down to my ankles … There was not a single hotel available in Banjaluka. The only room I could find was one which an old German Jew put at my disposal. I was eager to accept but the ceiling leaked so much that without an umbrella I would have got soaked. In the end, I had to avail myself of the hospitality of the Austrian vice consul.”

Endless maneuvers and the mediation of kind people, among them the Croatian consul, a Greek businessman and an interpreter, enabled the would-be founder on 10 June 1869 to sign a contract of purchase for property outside town at 1,400 ducats. He could pay, thanks to Br. Zacharias’ successful promotion and learned to find his way in a country under Turkish rule.

Abbot Francis:

“The government did not employ surveyors; instead, natural landmarks such as brooks, ditches, rivers, dirt roads, peculiar trees and huge stones served as boundaries. Our property was about 700 to 800 ac (48 40 sq. yd.). Thus with the stroke of a pen, I became a notable landowner in the Ottoman Empire.”

The property Fr. Francis had acquired overlooked the Vrbas River. It proved to be rich in stone, silica, timber and firewood, while the Vrbas and the smaller Raskovac River had water enough to generate power for the trade shops he planned to build. Except for a few tenants, no one lived in Delibasino selo, the local name for the place. Fr. Francis described it in an article he sent to the “Vorarlberger Volksblatt”. (gazette) within days of their arrival:

1869: Fr. Francis Pfanner on horseback in front of the temporary shelter, the cradle of Mariastern near Banjaluka in Bosnia

“For the time being we live in a stable which belongs to one of our tenants. We plan to build a temporary monastery to enable us to observe our rule, but it cannot be done in a hurry.”

Forty years later he remembered:

“After a tough two-year struggle a stable was all I had to offer my Brothers. We moved in on 21 June 1869 and were finally able to lay our weary heads on ground we could call our own. There wasn’t much else, for there was no straw to be found anywhere. So with our pen knives we cut bracken, dried it in the sun and spread it on the bare ground as mattresses … We did not need windows, because even while the door, hewn of warped raw timbers and barely held together with wooden nails, was closed, abundant light came in through cracks and crevices … The floor consisted of hard, tamped clay. Rafters and shingles were partly burnt and black with soot, because during the winter the place served as a hideout where the tenant brewed the forbidden slivovitz (prune brandy). Tables, chairs, cupboards and armchairs were non-existent. We hung our coats and cowls on hooks or projections in the wall and kept smaller items, such as books, breviaries, ink, chalice, missal, candles and cruets inside or on top of covered corn vats. The builder had dispensed with a chimney, fearing that the smoke would get blown back in through the cracks. The stable served us as an all-purpose room where we took meals and spent our days and nights … A tree gave us welcome shade for saying our Office, while a 5 x 3’ hut, leaning against an ancient oak tree in the thick wood, served us as a chapel in which to celebrate Mass.”13

A letter Fr. Francis wrote on 23 June 1869 to the Cistercian Nuns of Marienstern in Saxony (Germany) had as sender an almost identical name: “Mariastern in Bosnia”. The choice of name was a token of appreciation to the nuns for the generous contribution of two thousand guilders they had made towards the new foundation.

Mariastern became known in no time. After only two years, letters addressed to “Mariastern in Turkey” or “Fr. Franz14 in Turkey” unfailingly reached their destination. As a capable leader Fr. Franz made sure that despite the more than primitive circumstances the rule was observed in its strictness. Contacts outside Bosnia were through the Austrian consulate; it kept open the much needed lifeline to donors and benefactors. After a very few weeks Mariastern received its first postulants: one from Baden in Germany, the other from Vorarlberg.

Not all the pioneers had what it took to face the challenges of a new foundation. An extreme climate with frost, snow and icy cold winds in winter and blistering heat in summer took its toll. Three Brothers fell ill during the first year: one with pleurisy, another with meningitis and a third with malaria. Thus from sheer necessity Fr. Franz turned “doctor”, relying on natural medicine and home cures. Soon he found himself treating not only his Brothers but also the sick, including sick animals, people brought to the monastery.

From Shed to Monastery

In the middle of the nineteenth century Bosnia-Herzegovina and the rest of the Balkans along with Greece and Bulgaria belonged to the Ottoman Empire governed by the Turkish Crescent. Bosnia was a Turkish province of mixed population: ca. 300,000 Muslims, 360,000 Orthodox Christians, 122,000 Catholics (mainly Croatians), 5,000 Jews and 9,000 Romani. Banjaluka was the residence of a mutasarrif, the equivalent of a district officer. He was anything but obliging. But Fr. Francis was not bullied. Differences and disputes could not deter him from building Mariastern on a solid foundation:

“We desperately needed a shelter against the approaching winter … But it did not take our Turkish neighbours or the civic authorities long before they suspected that since we had no wives we must be Christian dervishes.”

Budding Mariastern did not only have to contend with scarce living space, unfavourable weather and Turkish hostilities, but also and more importantly, with differences in outlook among its own members. While Fr. Franz was ready to dispense from one or the other rule on account of the circumstances, two of his priests insisted on the literal observance of the rule. To humour them, he almost immediately began with the construction of a temporary monastery by hiring an Austrian contractor who had been recommended to him by the consul. That building was ready in September 1869.

Fr. Francis:

“Our little monastery stands on the edge of the oak wood but still on forest floor. It has one door opening towards the river and another, towards our future stables. A staircase leads from a central passage to the attic. The floors at ground-level are of packed clay but the attic has a wooden floor. The boards are not sawn but hewn from oak trees and made to lie flat by huge iron nails. The roof is something else. The local custom is to save shingles by placing them, not in double rows but singly. The attic is our dormitory. Though it is not high enough in the center for a man to stand upright, it offers room for many postulants. Lying flat on your back on a clear night you can see the stars twinkling through the chinks between the shingles. However, if by bad luck snow blows across the roof, our brown beards and bed covers turn white in no time. When we rise for choir at one or two in the morning, icicles fall off our beards. They melt only in the warm chapel.”

This description speaks volumes! The monks at Mariawald and Oelenberg could not have lived more primitively than their confreres at Mariastern. But it was precisely this stark simplicity which gained them candidates. On 7 September 1869, Eduard Biegner entered. He had travelled from Vienna to Hungary by a Danube steamer and then down the river Sava to Alt-Gradiska in Croatia. Unannounced, he stood at the door of the little monastery by the river and asked to be admitted as a Trappist.15

A Novice in a Monastery

By Francis Wendelin Pfanner

I am cheerful and content, because body and soul are in the right place.

I would not leave the monastery for anything in the world; here alone I wish to live and die.

To have nothing in this world, not even a shirt or a quill pen to write with, means something, if one renounces these things for the love of Jesus. Formerly, I had enough of everything but not the peace of mind I enjoy now.

Our monastery still needs furnishing. Because we have neither desks nor tables we write kneeling on the floor.

The Bosnian winter of 1869/​1870 was particularly severe. The monks installed an iron stove in the passage of their temporary monastery, but the smoke of the half green firewood, relentlessly curling its way to all the rooms including the chapel, drove them into the fresh air as soon as they got up.

Fr. Francis:

“Early one morning we headed for the woods to dig out stubs for no other reason than to warm up. We picked up our iron cramps and picks which leaned against the wall under the roof and started out. I don’t know what I was thinking when I grabbed mine and began to work with it. But I soon found out, because my fingers started knocking against the shaft. Completely numb, they were in no time as hard as iron. I ran to dip them in cold water. Feeling returned but the skin came off. I could not say Mass for several days.”

Until they were able to install an oven, the Mariastern pioneers had their maize bread baked by one of the tenant women. Gradually, stables for horses and cows were completed as were several trade shops. Fr. Franz appointed one of the priests as master of novices and a Brother, as general manager. Much of his own time was taken up with writing letters to friends and benefactors, while Br. Zacharias continued to campaign for support and vocations. Particularly generous donors were “named in the register of benefactors” and promised “a share in all our prayers and works of penance”. According to Trappist custom, two Masses were said for benefactors every Friday and Sunday.

Exciting Events

The new monastery for which Fr. Francis and Br. Zacharias had been sent from Mariawald had become a reality. But what was Mariastern’s status in the Order? As could be expected, Abbot Ephrem, who had been defeated in Rome, was more than reluctant to officially admit it to the Order. As vicar general of his Congregation16 he wielded his power to the effect that no admission was granted. This was a bitter pill for the pioneers but nothing could stop them from plodding on, not even the fact that all the reports Fr. Francis sent to his abbot remained unanswered. So they quietly continued turning scrub into farmland, cultivating the ground and building roads. Fr. Francis who was used to hard physical labour from youth led his monks in all activities and expected them to follow his example. Besides, he had taught himself enough of the Croatian language to attend to the people, mainly Catholics, who brought their needs to the “holy men in the woods”. One of the letters he wrote to Oelenberg describes in broad terms what life was like at Mariastern in 1869:

“At its furthest end our property borders on a huge forest where wolves have their dens. Fortunately, we do not need to fear them or other dangers. We are a community of nine, including five choir monks, but that number will soon go up to seven! Unfortunately, we had to send away two men for health reasons, i.e., chronic diseases. One was a much needed blacksmith and the other, a tailor. The only way we can get in touch with the outside world is by means of a draw bridge we have thrown across the Vrbas. Bosnia can be reached by train and/​or steamer. We have no problem meeting visitors at the border because our mail coach does the eight-hour trip twice a week on a regular basis.”

The Trappist Abbey of Mariastern in Bosnia which Francis Pfanner founded in 1869

This was an open invitation to Abbot Ephrem to come and see the new foundation for himself. But he remained adamant in his refusal, maintaining that Fr. Francis had “acted without authorization”. Who could change his mind? Apparently, nobody! Fr. Francis, though he had no obligation towards him after he had been vindicated and given a fresh mandate by Rome, did everything to humour him. When next he had business at the Vatican and went to stay once again at the Trappist procure, Abbot Regis whispered to him at the door: “Your countryman is inside.” Abbot Ephrem! Without a moment’s hesitation Fr. Francis went to see him. Ephrem however simply looked at him from his armchair but did not make a move to welcome him. So what was he to do? Trappist custom bade him prostrate, and he did so.

Abbot Francis:

“I remained in my prostrate position for I don’t know how long. Only when after a considerable time I had not yet been asked to rise, I decided to get up on my own and quietly left the room.”

Until his death, Ephrem did not melt towards Francis or, for that matter, towards the monks of Mariastern or the other monasteries Fr. Francis was still to found. Neither did he inform Oelenberg that he had been defeated in Rome. On the contrary, he left his monks free to circulate the rumour that Francis was “a renegade” who acted from disobedience.

As Bosnia was considered ‘mission territory’, the monastery, too, was recorded as a missionary institute and as such came under the jurisdiction, not of the Congregation for Bishops, Priests and Religious, but Propaganda Fide. It was precisely this status which was resented by the Franciscans who had enjoyed uncontested pastoral privileges in Bosnia for four hundred years. Very soon, Fr. Francis found himself at odds with them and their bishop. However, their fear was totally unfounded, because Trappists do not usually become pastorally active except in emergencies.

Problems arose also with Turkish officials over Mariastern’s building activities. At one point, positions became so hardened that Fr. Franz had to actually resort to the supreme authority in Constantinople.

Meanwhile, the monastery experienced an explosive growth. Br. Bruno, confectioner in Austria before he entered, was appointed farm manager. His job included the care of Mariastern’s cows to which Fr. Francis had recently added four pedigree animals of the ‘Muerztal breed’. But who could milk them? Since the manager had never milked a cow, Fr. Francis taught him without further ado. Other responsibilities were distributed: Fr. Gallus was appointed coachman, Br. Fridolin, cook and Br. Jacob, smith. Whatever a man’s occupation, he lend a hand with buildings and roads, while an Italian contractor supervised the kiln and Croatian masons laid the bricks.