Bernhard Boll

Bernhard Boll (7 June 1756 in Stuttgart – 6 March 1836 in Freiburg im Breisgau) was a German Roman Catholic priest, Cistercian monk and the first Archbishop of Freiburg.

Born Johann Heinrich Boll, he studied theology as a Jesuit novice in Rottweil from 1772 and then at the seminary in Dillingen an der Donau. He became a Cistercian monk at Salem Abbey in 1774, taking the name Bernhard. He was assessed as intelligent but angry and arrogant and so his probation was extended by a year, meaning he only took his perpetual vows on 13 November 1776.

He quickly developed into a devout monk and scholar and was ordained priest in 1780, later becoming professor of philosophy at Salem and at Tennenbach Abbey. In 1805 he became professor of philosophy at the University of Freiburg and in 1809 a canon at Freiburg Minster. Secularization and mediatization meant that Germany's dioceses and archdioceses also had to be reorganized. One of the archdioceses formed as a result was that of Freiburg, formed by merging the Diocese of Constance with parts of the Mainz, Straßburg, Worms and Würzburg dioceses. It was set up by pope Pius VII in the papal bull "Provida solersque" of 16 August 1821. The territory of the new archdiocese of Freiburg was mostly in the Grand Duchy of Baden (established in 1806) and difficulties arose finding a candidate for its archbishop who would be acceptable to both the pope and to Louis I, Grand Duke of Baden. Pope Leo XII suggested Boll as a compromise candidate in 1824 after Ignaz Heinrich von Wessenberg was rejected and the second choice Ferdinand Geminian Wanker died during the negotiations. Boll was consecrated as archbishop by Ferdinand August von Spiegel, archbishop of Cologne on 21 October 1827.

...
Wikipedia