Judicial service as reconciliation work
His private bedroom and living room are behind the walls of the St. Matthias monastery in Trier. Because Eucharius Wingenfeld is a monk. He gets up around five in the morning, first prays alone, then with ten confreres in the morning service. Breakfast standing up, a look at the newspaper, a trip to the monastery administration. Then he takes off his monk’s habit and takes the number 3 bus to the district court in civilian clothes. “I’m passionate about being a judge,” says Wingenfeld. He has been for almost 35 years. And civil judges. “I found joy in civil law early on.” Some of his superiors at the time could hardly have imagined a monk as a criminal judge. Civil matters are about conflicts – and “to put it in Christian terms, about reconciliation,” he says. “That’s how I’ve always understood my ministry as a judge: reconciliation work.”
Great moments as a judge
In negotiations in Room 56, the 65-year-old, then in a black robe, is raging with life: arguments about buying and repairing a car, arguments about an apartment, rent and evictions, arguments with the neighbors. Often, especially in disputes between neighbors and inheritance disputes – he is also a probate judge – “the subject of the dispute in the legal sense is not identical to the actual substance of the conflict”. There are two levels: a relationship level and a factual level, he says. “If you find out who insulted whom and stepped on who’s foot, then the issue was resolved very quickly.” He experienced great moments as a judge when he “stayed on” until “the real problems were on the table”. But he also has to evict people who haven’t paid rent for months: “It’s something I always find difficult.”
Son of a criminal judge and “Christian socialized”
When Wingenfeld is back home at midday, that is, in the monastery, he slips back into his habit for midday prayer at 12:30 p.m.: “Something changes in me when I sit in church,” he says. And: “Prayer is incredibly helpful for the job because it always gets me out of the hustle and bustle.” In the afternoon he then logs back into his electronic files in the monastery. As a 16-year-old, Wingenfeld, born in Fulda, Hesse, the son of a criminal judge and “socialized to be Christians” in Seligenstadt, first came to the St. Matthias Monastery on a school trip, a pilgrimage church with the tomb of the Apostle Matthias and a history that is more than 1,700 years old . After six semesters of law studies, he began a novitiate with the Benedictines in 1981. Then he took his first state exam. In 1985 he made his solemn profession: “I have therefore decided to remain in this community forever.” And in November 1988 he became a judge.
“I am only one person”
“It was by no means a matter of course,” says Brother Eucharius. In the novitiate he “lost faith in God” and quietly began every service with the words: “In case you exist, oh God, come to my aid.” He had “rebuilt the whole foundation, it wasn’t straight forward”. Three sentences that he formulated at the time that God promised him still carry him in his faith today: “It’s good that you exist. Don’t be afraid, I’m with you. And: everything will be fine.” He said he “didn’t regret a single day that I lived here”. The confreres, aged between 43 and 91, are his family. The judge and the monk are not two lives, but one, says Wingenfeld. “I’m only one person. I don’t have the feeling that I have to pull a lever.” The job helps him to live his mission as a Christian: namely, to pass on the experience that God loves people. Of course the Benedictine had to pray and work (“ora et labora”). But the Rule of St. Benedict gives the instruction: “Honor all people. For me, that is the top priority when dealing with people.”
The only judge monk nationwide
Albrecht Keimburg, director of the district court in Trier, says: “Eucharius is a highly valued colleague.” With his “very approachable and balancing character” he is very popular in the team. “For us he is the Eucharius. This acceptance of his being a monk is brought into our company here by the fact that everyone calls him Eucharius and thinks nothing of it,” says Keimburg. Wingenfeld says he has a lot of experience in court: “Of course, that also widens my heart.” He adds: “As a young judge you are sometimes very bold. The other side – the compassion, the forbearance – then grows over time.” He is the only monk nationwide who is a judge. “In the beginning I was the exotic, the parrot. Both among the monks of the German Benedictines and in court.” But that has long since normalized, he says. When asked if he doesn’t feel restricted by his strictly scheduled everyday life, he says: “Monasticism is like bobsledding. If you master the bobsled, then you have the feeling of complete freedom even in the ice track.”
Religious in secular occupations rather uncommon
The spokesman for the German Superiors Conference, Arnulf Salmen, said in Bonn that it was always the case that religious pursued professions that were “not in the context of the religious order”. The fact that a monk acts as a judge is “extraordinary”. In general, it is the case that “a clear majority” of the religious in Germany are active “on the internal mission of the religious community or for a diocese” – and not outside in secular professions. In St. Matthias, says Brother Eucharius, as a monk you can practice any profession that is compatible with life in the monastery. Another brother works in the youth welfare office of the city of Trier, for example. In the monastery there is an absolute community of goods. “Everything that the individual gets, whether it’s money from grandma, a donation or a salary, it goes into the big pot.” The expenses are then paid from this. Wingenfeld has an appointment almost every evening. The judge will retire in early 2024. “I want to take a sabbatical then,” he says. Means: Don’t take on new tasks right away and go on a longer pilgrimage. He has set himself the Swedish St. Olavsweg, 585 kilometers from Sundsvall to Trondheim.
Editor beck-aktuell, Birgit Reichert, May 5, 2023 (dpa).