DÖLLINGER, IGNÁZ von. — Historian and theologian, born in Bamberg on 28 February 1799, died in Munich on 10 January 1890.
After a varied course of studies (history, literature, philosophy, theology, mathematics, natural sciences), he decided to devote himself primarily to theology and chose the ecclesiastical state. Dissatisfied with the theological courses at the University of Würzburg and the seminary in Bamberg, he supplemented them with private studies, though without being able to compensate for the deficiencies in his dogmatic formation. Ordained priest in 1822, after a few months of pastoral care he devoted himself to academic activity: professor in 1823 at the lyceum in Aschaffenburg, and in 1826 at the University of Munich, where he worked until his death.
Through his efforts, that university became one of the principal centres for the renewal of Catholic studies. In Munich he soon became part of the circle around Görres and the editors of *Eos*. He shared their politico-religious ideas and, with them, fought for the freedom of the Church from state interference and for the penetration of the Christian ideal into every sphere of life.
Sent in 1848 to the Frankfurt Parliament, he there upheld the independence of the Church from the state (not their separation) and the equal treatment of all confessions by the state. With no less tenacity, he pursued the programme of a unitary, or national, German Catholic Church—not autonomous with respect to the Apostolic See or privileged in comparison with other nations, but closely united in its members around a national synod of bishops and a primacy. Thus the Catholic half of the German people could more easily command respect in the various states and from the various confessions, and could bring the entire nation to fulfil a great mission in the service of truth and Catholicism. Döllinger presented these ideas at the first assembly of Catholic organisations in Mainz (1848), at the Würzburg episcopal conference (1848), before Austrian Catholics (Linz 1849), before political authorities, and in every sphere where his very wide sphere of action could reach. In these years, Döllinger was perhaps the most eminent figure in German Catholicism. Yet when his position is compared, for example, with that of the canonistic school (Phillips), marked by a strong emphasis on the Roman primacy, or with the general wave of enthusiasm among the population, which from the arrest of the Archbishop of Cologne (1837) onwards saw in the Holy See the first guarantee and protector of ecclesiastical freedom in Germany, it is clear that Döllinger was entirely absent from these currents. In reality, his activity began to arouse the first suspicions within Catholic circles at this time. Döllinger had always been more a man of study and scholarship than of action and life, easily rigidifying into theoretical positions, often hesitant and subject to the influence of others.
The decade 1850–60 marks a phase of exclusive literary and scholarly activity. Returning to his chair in 1849, Döllinger added to his earlier works (among them a *Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte* [Textbook of Church History], Regensburg 1836–38; a study of Muhammad, *Mohammed und seine Lehre*, 1838; and the celebrated *Die Reformation* [3 vols., ibid. 1846–49]) his most important writings in the field of ecclesiastical history: *Hippolytus und Kallistus* (ibid. 1853), *Heidentum und Judentum* (ibid. 1857), *Christentum und Kirche* (ibid. 1860). The last of these was intended as an effective Catholic counterweight to the rationalistic interpretation (Bauer–Strauss) of apostolic Christianity.
A study trip to Italy in 1857 left Döllinger disappointed by the distrust he encountered in Rome for his consistently negative stance on the question of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
Around 1860 he returned to politico-religious activity. His position toward Rome became publicly notorious after his lectures in 1861 at the Odeon in Munich (later expanded into the book *Kirche und Kirchen, Papsttum und Kirchenstaat*, Munich 1861), in which he expressed his impressions of the situation of the Papal States and predicted their imminent fall. Meanwhile, in the world of ecclesiastical studies, the struggle was raging between the neo-scholastic movement and the so-called *German theology*, which cultivated the evolutionary aspect of dogmas and of Church history and opposed any limitation imposed by authoritative dogmatic decisions.
The struggle was very bitter on both sides and not always conducted with due charity. The neo-scholastic tendency enjoyed, in general, the support of Rome; the other side increasingly relied on political powers, and Döllinger was drawn into this difficult question and into an opposition that grew ever more embittered (openly erupting at the Congress of German Catholic scholars in Munich in 1863). Gradually, the great scholar moved away from the ecclesiastical point of view. Notable in this line were his campaign against the erection of episcopal seminaries and his explicit opposition to the *Syllabus*. In the thesis of papal infallibility he saw a reversal of ecclesiastical constitution and a danger to the state. Therefore, on the eve of the Vatican Council, he devoted all his learning and political influence to opposition.
Excluded from the preparatory consultations of the council, Döllinger intensified his propaganda among the clergy and people through articles, through the *Riflessioni* (*Erwägungen*, etc.), addressed to the council bishops in October 1869, and through persistent action with various governments to foment their suspicions and opposition. He went so far as to present infallibility as including the pope’s dominion over the entire temporal order, thus destructive of state authority, and to call for state intervention against conciliar decisions. During the council, Döllinger, informed by persons present in Rome, drafted from Munich the *Briefe vom Konzil* and other writings of violent opposition, until in April 1870 he was ordered to remain silent. After the proclamation of papal infallibility, Döllinger refused to submit, respecting the excommunication while contesting its legitimacy, and resigned his university chair, though he continued to exert a notable influence as president of the Academy of Sciences (famous for the *Akademische Vorträge*, later published in 3 vols., 1889–91). He took no active part in the origins of the Old Catholic movement and never joined II. As to his influence on the policy of the *Kulturkampf*, it is for now impossible to pronounce. He worked enthusiastically for a reunion of the separated Churches on the basis of broad tolerance of the various confessions, but with meagre and short-lived results. In his last years, despite failing health, he completed a publication of sources on the history of the Council of Trent (*Ungedruckte Berichte...*, 2 vols., 1876), a *Geschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten in der röm.-kath. Kirche seit dem 16. Jahrhundert* (2 vols., 1889), the 2 vols. of his *Geschichte der gnostisch-manichäischen Sekten im früheren Mittelalter* (Munich 1890), and various other writings. For an understanding of Döllinger’s politico-religious activity in the various periods of his life, the publication of his *Kleinere Schriften*, edited by F. H. Reusch in 1890, is also very useful. Until his death, Döllinger refused to submit to the council.
Döllinger’s importance lies in having opened the way for a strictly objective study of ecclesiastical history. His influence on the development of positive theological studies can scarcely be overestimated.