MEISTERMANN, Barnabé. – Palestinian scholar, missionary, and architect, Franciscan, b. 27 March 1850 at Pfaffenheim (Alsace), d. at Jerusalem on 29 Sept. 1923. Ordained priest in 1873 and professed in 1875, he served from 1882 to 1887 as apostolic penitentiary at Santa Maria degli Angeli (Assisi). In 1887 he was summoned to Rome to oversee construction of the new College of St Anthony, but in the same year he went as a missionary to China, where at Chefoo he built an orphanage-hospital; then in 1891 at Tung-erh-kow (Apostolic Vicariate of Taiyuanfu, northern Shansi) he erected the first Franciscan convent in China. From 1893 until 1923 he resided in the Holy Land, where alongside his pastoral labours he devoted himself especially to archaeological and topographical studies; during this period he published his most important works.
Works: *La Portiuncula* (Foligno 1884); *Le Mont Tabor* (Paris 1900, Jerusalem 1901); *Deux questions d'archéologie palestinienne* (Jerusalem 1902); *Le prétoire de Pilate* (Paris 1902); *Questions de topographie palestinienne* (Jerusalem 1903); *Le tombeau de la Ste Vierge d'Jerusalem* (ibid. 1903); *La patrie de St Jean-Baptiste* (Paris 1904); *La ville de David* (ibid. 1905); *Nouveau guide de Terre Sainte* (3rd ed. ibid. 1936 [1st ed. ibid. 1907]; Italian trans., Florence 1925); *Guide du Nil au Jourdain* (ibid. 1909); *Getsemani* (ibid. 1920). Several articles in the *Catholic Encyclopedia* (New York). Although Meistermann’s works were much contested, more recent excavations have confirmed his views.
MEJER, OTTO GEORG ALEXANDER. – Protestant scholar of ecclesiastical law, b. 27 May 1818 at Zellerfeld (Harz), d. 24 Dec. 1893 at Hanover. In 1847 he began his university career at the University of Göttingen, to which he returned as full professor after teaching at Königsberg, Greifswald, and Rostock. In 1885 he became president of the Lutheran regional consistory of Hanover.
In 1845 he published a volume on the institutions of German ecclesiastical law (*Institutionen des gemeinen deutschen Kirchenrechts*, 3rd ed., retitled *Lehrbuch des deutschen Kirchenrechts*, 1869). He also issued two volumes on Propaganda Fide (*Die Propaganda. Ihre Provinzen, ihr Recht mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Deutschland dargestellt*, 1852–53) and juridical works on the Lutheran Church (*Die Grundlagen des lutherischen Kirchenregiments*, 1864; *Das Rechtsleben der deutschen evangelischen Landeskirchen*, 1889; *Zum Kirchenrecht des Reformationsjahrhunderts*, 1891). He was active as a publicist during the *Kulturkampf*. He also authored a work on Febronius (*Febronius, Hontheim und sein Widerruf*, 1880). His major work, however, is *Zur Geschichte der römischen-deutschen Frage* (3 vols., 1871–74, 1885), which expounds the history of concordatory negotiations from 1815 onward.