PILGRAM, FRIEDRICH. - German thinker, sociologist and lay theologian, b. at Imbach near Solingen in 1819, d. at Monheim on the Rhine on 21 Nov. 1890. Educated in Protestant rationalism, he soon felt its inadequacy and began to seek the solution to his doubts in science and philosophy. Remaining dissatisfied with Spinozistic pantheism and also with the idealism of Hegel, which he had at first studied with such enthusiasm, he finally found the truth in reading the works of St. Augustine and in Catholicism, to which he was converted on 23 Dec. 1846 at Koblenz.
Having found inner peace, P. retired to Monheim, where he devoted all his time to the preparation of his writings. Having come to know well the German idealism in which he had been formed, P. sought with a style of his own to bring to light the objective reality of the work of the Redemption and of its continuation in the Church of Christ. Linking this idea with another that was for him fundamental, that of the unity of all men in God and in Christ, he sought to translate them into his studies on Church and State. Thus were born his principal works Physiologie der Kirche (Mainz 1860, French ed. Paris 1864), an attempt at an exposition of the sociology of the Church, and Neue Grundlagen der Wissenschaft vom Staate (Berlin 1870), a synthesis of a doctrine of the State based on Christian principles.
Although he felt no great inclination for the unstable vicissitudes of political life, he was for some time editor of the Rheinischer Rüst (1859-64) and in 1870 one of the founders and for a brief period also editor of Germania, taking a stand in favor of the new Prussian German Empire.
Writings: besides those already cited, v.: Kontroversen mit den Ungläubigen (Freiburg im Br. 1855); Soziale Fragen betrachtet aus dem Prinzip der kirchlichen Gemeinschaft (ibid. 1855); Leben und Wirken hervorragender Protestanten betrachtet aus katholischen Glaubensprinzipien (ibid. 1857).