EGGER, AUGUSTIN

EGGER, AUGUSTIN. — Bishop of St. Gallen, born at Dussang (Thurgau) on 5 August 1833, died there on 12 March 1906. A student of theology at Tübingen, he was ordained a priest in 1856. Lecturer at the Episcopal Seminary of St. George and parish priest of Oberried, he moved to St. Gallen in 1865, where in 1882 he succeeded Bishop Greith. He was a steadfast defender of the rights of the Church in the controversies with the Old Catholics, in the matter of mixed marriages, and in that of the school. As bishop, he vigorously supported the reconstitution of the diocese of Basel (1885) and headed the Swiss episcopal conferences. He also played a major role in the founding of the faculty of theology at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland (1890).