Bishop Alexander Frison
Recently I received an email Silvana Rizzo of Padova, Italy. She was inquiring about the use of photographs of Bishop Dr. Alexander Frison, which appear at the GRHC website. Ms. Rizzo works with the German language magazine, Sendbote des heiligen Antonius, published in Italy. An article about the life of Bishop Frison will be published in the January, 2008 issue of this magazine.
Bishop Dr. Alexander Frison, was Apostolic Administrator of Odessa, born on May 5, 1875 at Baden, near Odessa, Ukraine.
The following information about Bishop Alexander Frison translated from German to English is taken from the 2003 calendar of the Historical Research Society of Germans from Russia (Historischer Forschungsverein der Deutschen aus Russland e.V.,) www.hfdr.de
“Alexander Frison was born the second son of the third generation of a simple farming family whose ancestors immigrated in 1808 to Baden/Odessa from the Alsatian town of Oberseebach. He finished in seminary studies in Saratov, Russia in 1897 at the age of 22. In 1902, upon the recommendation of Bishop Zerr, he was sent to study in Rome, Italy where he completed his doctorate in philosophy. In 1904, he completed his second doctorate in Rome in theology.”
“Toward the end of 1930, Stalin decided to “liquidate” the good farmers and the priests and church buildings. Church towers were toppled, bells were tossed to the ground, and priests were exile or condemmed to extreme sentences in concentration camps. Bishop Frison, during a show trial in 1930, was sentenced to death along with 32 German-Russian parish priests. Only as a consequence of solidarity protests by 30,000 demonstrators in Rome, and a written plea by the Pope himself were the death sentences of the accussed commuted to several years imprisonment.”
“On June 20, 1937, the last Catholic German-Russian bishop, Alexander Frison, was shot to death in the old cemetery at Simperofol, Crimea. Not a single trace of him can be found there today.”
Further information about Bishop Alexander Frison is available from these resources:
2003 Kalendar: Historischer Forschungsverein der Deutschen aus Russland, e.V.
Hide Me Within They Wounds: The Persecution of the Catholic Church in the USSR
Witnesses for Christ: A German 20th Century Martyrology: German-Russian Bishops, Diocesean Priests and Priests from Religious Orders
Michael M. Miller
Bishop Alexander Frison
November 28th, 2007 at 7:42 am
I am proud to say that I am related to Bishop Frison. My grandmother was Magdalena Frison. There are a number of Frisons in the U.S. who are related to him, some more closely than I am.
November 28th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Margaret,
Thank you for this valuable information of your relationship with Bishop Alexander Frison. It would be interesting to learn how your grandmother Magdalena Frison is related to Bishop Frison. Are these Frison relatives living in the USA and also in Canada?
Further information about Bishop Frison will be appreciated.
November 29th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
MESSAGE FROM SEBASTIAN MICHAEL DECK
Information from reputable journals; from Paradise on the Steppe, by Joseph Height (pages 356-359); Height’s source probably from Geschichte der Diozese Tyraspol, von Joseph Alfonsius Keßler (1930).
BISHOP DR. ALEXANDER FRISON (1873-1937)
Alexander Frison was born May 5, 1873 in village of Baden, Kutschurgan District (Odessa); went to diocesan minor seminary in Saratov; after three years (at age 15) returned home helping to operate the farm when his father became seriously ill; at age 22 returned to Saratov to resume studies in the preparatory seminary; after completion of courses in minor seminary was sent in 1897 to Rome by Bishop Anton Zerr for theological studies; returned to Saratov in autumn of 1902 and was ordained by Bishop von der Ropp on November 23, 1902; celebrated First Mass in his native village of Baden on December 3, 1902; after a few days went to Rome for two years to receive doctoral degrees in philosophy and theology; autumn of 1904 returned to Saratov and was appointed by Bishop Joseph Kessler as his secretary and as curate at the cathedral; 1905 was appointed professor of theology at the seminary; 1910 was appointed rector of seminary; 1917 Bishop Kessler, professors (including Dr. Frison) and seminarians fled to Odessa to escape the Bolsheviks; 1919 Frison was appointed to the parish of Kerch, in the Crimea; few years later became parish priest in Simferopol and came under surveillance of Communist spies; 1925 was imprisoned eight months for an act of charity without having official permission; May 1929 was summoned to the French embassy in Moscow; May 10, 1929 was secretly consecrated a bishop and was appointed apostolic administrator of the Crimea; returned to Simferopol where Communist spies informed authorities of his trip to Moscow; was arrested and held in prison for three weeks where he confessed of having been consecrated bishop; imprisoned in 1930 and in 1935; August 13, 1936 arrested on charge of espionage; was imprisoned beginning of 1937, was in solitary confinement and subjected to Soviet-style interrogations; March 8, 1937 appeared before the ruthless NKVD (secret police), trial lasting nine days; sentenced to death March 17, 1937 and executed same day by a firing squad; according to a report, body was quartered and thrown into a ravine; Bishop Kessler heard of a report that Bolsheviks threw the body into the Black Sea near Sebastopol; neither report is verifiable.