Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin (1770-1840): Transatlantic Educational Reforms between the Poles of Enlightenment and Catholic Piety in Münster and Pennsylvania

The research project analyzes the life and impact of Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin (1770-1840), a Catholic missionary, publicist, pioneer in education, and parish priest of Loretto in Pennsylvania, sent from Münster to America in 1792. As the son of a Russian prince and ambassador and a German countess, he spent his childhood together with his sister among the parents' illustrious visitors and guests in The Hague. They all took part in a lively exchange about the Enlightenment's ideas concerning religion, philosophy, science, and education. After the parents' separation in 1779, his mother Amalia von Gallitzin moved with her children to Münster, where they soon gathered around them an intellectual, literary-philosophical circle of clergymen, educationalists, aristocrats, poets, and publicists, seeking for individual self-fulfillment in the tension between reason, faith, and piety, following the ideas and spirit of a Catholic Enlightenment. In 1792, the young Gallitzin left Europe for the United States, devoting himself to the Catholic missions and eventually settled in Pennsylvania. Gallitzin was one of the few missionaries who clearly understood how to defend his positions and the essential dogmas of Catholicism in the face of ever tougher anti-Catholic resentments by using enlightened Catholic rhetorics. He wanted to improve the living conditions of his parishioners and to care for their religious and useful education. Gallitzin composed apologetic treaties and maintained close relations back to Europe. Large parts of his correspondences were hitherto neglected in historical research. Within these transatlantic networks of discourse and exchange, Gallitzin appears as an important mediator who furthered the transfer of ideas, concepts, and media between Europe and America, especially in the field of education.