Biography of Father Josef Graisy


Father Joseph Graisy was born Feb 25, 1911, to Johann and Maria (Leurer) Graisy of house 155 in Wallern, Austria. He was the youngest of 10 surviving children. He was ordained a priest of the SVD (Societas Verbi Divin / Society of the Divine Word) in 1937 after being a student for 10 years at the SVD's Missionsprivatgymnasium St. Rupert (secondary prep school) in Bischofshofen, Austria (about 25 miles south of Salzburg) and a novitiate for 6 years at the SVD's St. Gabriel Missionshaus in Maria Enzersdorf, Austria (about 10 miles south-southwest of central Vienna). He died Jan 10, 1983, at the Hartmann Hospital in Vienna.

In the 1970s, he began research on the "History of the People of Wallern" and, in parallel, on "Wallern in the History of Its Houses," mostly, as he says in the introduction to the second book, as a gift to his fellow Wallern citizens and as a way to connect back to his home village. As far as I know, the first text was never published as a book but has served, nonetheless, as source material for the published village and parish histories of Wallern and, in part, as sections in his "Houses" text. A first typescript draft of the "Houses" book was produced and scanned copies were made and circulated with Father Graisy's consent, but a second, final version was also completed and a limited run of hardcover books was published around 1981. Because of the book, he was made an honorary citizen of Wallern and the square in front of the old parish kindergarten was renamed "Father Joseph Graisy Square" in his honor on April 3, 2011, a date shortly after the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Of his actual work as a missionary priest, he was sent to Tsingtao (now Qingdao), China in 1938 and then Beijing in 1942. From 1949 until 1955, he served in the Philippines. He then returned to the St. Gabriel Missionshaus in Austria and served as choirmaster from 1956 until 1967. From 1968 until his death, he served in Health Pastoral Care in Pfronten im Allgäu, Germany and then in the Hartmannspital in Vienna.

St. Gabriel Missionshaus, built in 1888, is the seat of the Divine Word Missionaries in Austria and provides management and administration of its Austrian province. In its early years, it established a theological training college for missionaries and has produced some 3,000 graduates over the years. It was a center for scientific research in the fields of ethnology and missiology and ran a printing house and a spiritual formation house. In 1925, about 600 brothers, priests and students lived at St. Gabriel. See http://www.steyler.eu/svd/niederlassungen/st-gabriel/index.php for more information.
 

 

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by T. J. Steichen

2015.9.8