MORIN, GERMAIN

Benedictine theologian and scholar; b. Caen, France, Nov. 6, 1861; d. Orselina-Locarno, Switzerland, Feb. 12, 1946. He entered the Abbey of maredsous in 1881, was ordained in 1886, and devoted himself to research in hagiography, patrology, liturgy, theology, and the history of monasticism. In 1884 he helped to found the Revue bénédictine. In 1907 he moved to St. Boniface Abbey in Munich, where he remained except for the war years 1914 to 1918 and 1940 to 1945, when he took refuge in Fribourg, Switzerland. A prodigious scholar, severe in his critical judgment, he explored manuscripts in many libraries and made important discoveries concerning the authorship of texts. His critical edition of the works of St. caesarius of arles (2 v. Maredsous 1937–42) was epoch making and represents the fruit of 50 years of study. He discovered commentaries and sermons by St. Jerome, which he edited with other texts in Anecdota Maredsolana (3 v. 1893–1903). A major contribution was his edition of the sermons of St. Augustine discovered since the great Maurist edition and published as "S. Augustini sermones post Maurinos reperti," in Miscellanea Agostiniana (v. 1 Rome 1930). He was the first to identify a large number of these sermons as belonging to Augustine. This edition was probably the most significant single contribution to the fifteenth centenary celebration of Augustine's death. In Études, textes, découvertes (1913) he published other discoveries of importance to the history and literature of the Catholic Church in the first 12 centuries.

Bibliography: o. perler, Zeitschrift für Schweizer Kirchengeschichte 40 (1946): 31–41. j. m. madoz, "La carrera científica de dom Germán Morin, O.S.B.," Estudios eclesiásticos 20 (1946): 487–507. p. borella, Ephemerides liturgicae 61 (1947): 55–76. j. spÖrl, Historisches Jahrbuch der Görres-Gesellschaft 62–69 (1949) 961–967. m. c. mccarthy, The Rule for Nuns of St. Caesarius of Arles (Washington 1960).

[f. x. murphy]