Thomas Spreiter
| Thomas Spreiter, OSB | |
|---|---|
| Born |
December 28, 1865 Regensburg, Germany |
| Died | January 27, 1944 (aged 78) Vryheid, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa |
| Resting place | Sacred Heart Abbey, Inkamana |
| Nationality | German |
| Occupation | Missionary, bishop |
| Years active | 1900 - 1943 |
| Organization | Ottilien Congregation |
Thomas (Franz Xavier) Spreiter, OSB (28 December 1865 – 27 January 1944) was a German missionary, one of the first of the Missionary Benedictines, who worked in German East Africa and later South Africa. He was the ordinary of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dar-es-Salaam in German East Africa, and bishop of the Apostolic Vicariate of Natal and of the Vicariate of Eshowe.
Thomas Spreiter was born to a deeply religious Catholic middle-class family. From an early age, he had shown an interest in missionary work, but during the Kulturkampf no orders could engage in missionary activities. However, Benedictine visionary Andreas Amrhein had just begin his Ottilien Congregation and had opened up an institute in Reichenbach am Regen, not far from Regensburg. Spreiter began his novitiate there on 29 September 1886. The institute was housed in a former Benedictine monastery, and the first years, poverty reigned and the work was hard; additionally, Spreiter had become Amrhein's personal secretary. In 1887, the order transferred its activities to St. Ottilien Archabbey. There, he professed on 2 February 1888, and was ordained on 28 July 1897.
In 1900, he left for the mission in Zanzibar, where the Benedictines of St. Ottilien Archabbey had been active after 1888. He headed the mission there in 1905, until the Maji Maji Rebellion, during which Bishop Cassian and four other bishops were killed, threatened his mission and his life; they fled, and Spreiter went to Europe to learn of his future as a missionary.
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