NILLES, NIKOLAUS. - Jesuit, canonist and liturgist, b. at Rippweiler (Luxembourg) on 21 June 1828, d. at Innsbruck on 31 Jan. 1907.
Having entered the Order (1858) after completing his studies at the German College in Rome and receiving the priesthood, he was immediately elected professor of canon law at the University of Innsbruck and held the post almost until his death. From 1870 to 1895 he was also rector of the theological college, whose Consuetudines he composed. A man of great activity, in addition to the numerous articles he contributed to the Zeitschr. für kathol. Theologie, he left two fundamental works that made him deserving of the cult of the Sacred Heart and of the reunion of the separated Churches of the East: De rationibus festorum sacratissimi Cordis Jesu et purissimi Cordis Mariae libri IV (2 vols., Innsbruck 1867; 5th ed. 1885) and Kalendarium manuale utriusque Ecclesiae orientalis et occidentalis (2 vols., ibid. 1879-81; 2nd ed., 1896-97). Both works were received with praise, especially the second, and not only by Catholics but also by Protestants (Nestle, Harnack etc.) and by the official Russian Church, which, almost by way of commentary, published a series of 48 polychrome plates for the individual saints of the year and for the feasts of the Christian mysteries: Ephemerides figuratae graeco-clavicae, Festbilder-Atlas zu Nikolai N. S. J., Ἑορτολόγιον πρόγραρον: Kalendarium manuale (Moscow 1897), sending him a copy as a gift. Also to be mentioned: Commentarius in Concilium plenarium Baltimorense tertium (2 vols., Innsbruck, 1884-91).
Bibliography2 works
Celestino Testore