Early life , Switzerland Balthasar was born in
Lucerne, Switzerland, on 12 August 1905, to a patrician family. His father, Oscar Ludwig Carl von Balthasar (1872–1946), was a church architect, and his mother, Gabrielle Pietzcker (d. 1929), helped found the
Schweizerischer Katholischer Frauenbund (Swiss League of Catholic Women). Pietzcker was related to the beatified Hungarian bishop
Blessed Vilmos Apor, who was shot by
Soviet troops in 1945 while trying to protect women from drunken Soviet soldiers. Oscar and Gabrielle had three children. Hans Urs was the eldest. Their son Dieter would join the
Swiss Guard. Their daughter Renée (1908–1986) became the superior general of the . Hans Urs would later describe his family as "straightforwardly Catholic ... I grew up with a faith that was equally straightforward, untroubled by doubt. I can still remember the silent and very moving early Masses on my own in the choir of the Franciscan church in Lucerne and the ten-o'clock Mass in the Jesuit church, which I thought was stunningly beautiful." As a child, Hans and his family spent much time at the hotel Pension Felsberg, which his grandmother managed. Here, he was regularly exposed to a "cosmopolitan" atmosphere where "trilingualism (German, French, English) [was] taken for granted," as biographer
Peter Henrici notes. Hans, who had
absolute pitch, was immersed in classical music, particularly
Schubert,
Tchaikovsky, and
Mahler, and this interest would continue through early adulthood. By his own account, he "spent endless hours on the piano". While doing university studies in Vienna, he reportedly would play the piano
four hands almost nightly with his roommate
Rudolf Allers. Later, as a Jesuit chaplain, he would perform a transcription of
Mozart's
Don Giovanni from memory.
Education Educated first by Benedictine monks at the abbey school of
Engelberg in central Switzerland—during the time of the
First World War—Balthasar transferred to the more academically rigorous
Stella Matutina, a preparatory school run by the
Society of Jesus in
Feldkirch, Austria, whose alumni include
Arthur Conan Doyle and the Thomist cardinal
Franz Ehrle. Aside from music, Balthasar also took a strong interest in literature, later citing
Dante and
Goethe as key early influences. A year before graduation from Stella Matutina, he enrolled early at the
University of Zurich to study German literature. After stints researching in
Vienna and
Berlin, he obtained his doctorate in 1928, with a dissertation on the theme of
eschatology in German and Germanophone thought, drawing heavily from Catholic theology. Writing in the 1980s, he said of this latter work that "its fundamental impulse was the desire to reveal ... the ultimate religious attitude, often hidden, of the great figures of modern German literature. I wanted to let them, so to speak, 'make their confession'. The work was of insufficient maturity—most of the chapters ought to be rewritten—and yet some of it may still be valid." According to Henrici, submitting a dissertation of this nature to the "Liberal Protestant" University of Zurich was academically risky for a student at that time, but the faculty awarded Balthasar his doctorate
summa cum laude.
Society of Jesus Though a practicing Catholic, with "untroubled faith" and "devotion to
our Lady", Balthasar had remained largely uninterested in theology and spirituality until his university years. While studying in Berlin, he also heard lectures by the theologian
Romano Guardini. In 1929, Balthasar attended a retreat for students in
Wyhlen, Germany, and sensed what he believed to be a sudden call to follow
Jesus Christ:Even today [in 1959], after thirty years, I could still find again the tree on the lost path in the Black Forest, not far from Basel, under which I was struck as if by lightning.... [I]t was neither theology nor the priesthood that, at that moment, appeared in a flash before my mind; it was this alone: You have nothing to choose; you are called. You will not serve; another will use you. You have no plans to make; you are only a small little tile in a mosaic that has long been ready. I needed only to "leave everything and follow," without making plans, without wishes or ideas: I needed only to stand there and wait and see what I would be used for—and so it happened.He understood this experience as having been mediated by the figure of
Ignatius of Loyola. Balthasar would later write of Loyola, "I did not choose him; he set me ablaze like a bolt of lightning." On November 18, 1929, Balthasar entered the
Society of Jesus in south Germany, not long after the death of his mother. At that time, Jesuit work and ministry was prohibited in Switzerland by constitutional law. After two years as a
Jesuit novice, he studied philosophy at
Pullach, near
Munich, where he came into contact with
Erich Przywara, who formed him in
Scholasticism and whose work on the
analogia entis impacted him, though he would later express some hesitation about certain aspects of his thought. In 1932, Balthasar moved to Fourvière, the Jesuit school in
Lyon, France, for four years of theological study. Here he encountered fellow Jesuits
Henri Bouillard,
Jean Daniélou,
Gaston Fessard, and
Henri de Lubac, figures later associated with the
nouvelle théologie. De Lubac kindled the young student's interest in the
Church Fathers, especially
Origen,
Gregory of Nyssa, and
Maximus the Confessor. In Lyon, Balthasar also encountered the work of French writers
Charles Péguy,
Georges Bernanos, and
Paul Claudel. Balthasar was
ordained a priest on 26 July 1936. As a motto on his ordination card, he used the phrase
"Benedixit, fregit, deditque" ("He blessed it, broke it, and gave"), taken from the words of the institution of the
Eucharist in the
Gospel of Luke. After finishing his theological studies in 1937, he was sent to Munich to work at the journal
Stimmen der Zeit, where he remained until 1939. He completed his
tertianship with Albert Steger in 1940. When given the choice between a professorship at the
Gregorian University in Rome and a role as student
chaplain in
Basel, Switzerland, he chose the chaplaincy, preferring pastoral work to academia. Moving to Basel in 1940, Balthasar edited the
Europaische Reihe literary series for the Sammlung Klosterberg, translated
French Resistance poetry, helped to produce plays (including a staging of his own translations of Bernanos'
Dialogues of the Carmelites and Claudel's
The Satin Slipper), published book-length studies on
Maximus the Confessor and
Gregory of Nyssa, and regularly lectured to students. He established the
Studentische Schulungsgemeinschaft in 1941, an institute for student formation that featured courses and conferences by
Hugo Rahner,
Martin Buber,
Yves Congar,
Gustav Siewerth, Henri de Lubac, and others. To the students, Balthasar offered liturgies, sermons, retreats, and spiritual direction, with a particular emphasis on the
Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. According to Jacques Servais, "A good number of the young men eventually entered the Society of Jesus, while others decided to remain in the lay state, hoping to find a form of consecration to God in the world."
Collaboration with Adrienne von Speyr During his first months in Basel, he met the physician
Adrienne von Speyr through a mutual friend. A mother in her late thirties, and a somewhat prominent figure in Basel society, she was married to the historian
Werner Kaegi, with two children from her first marriage to , who had died suddenly in 1934. She was a Protestant, but interested in becoming Catholic. Balthasar began to offer her
catechetical instruction and later said of this process, "In the instructions she understood everything immediately, as though she had only—and for how long!—waited to hear exactly what I was saying in order to affirm it." Shortly following her reception into the Catholic Church on 1 November 1940—at a liturgy celebrated by Balthasar—Speyr began reporting intense experiences in prayer, including visions of
Christ's Passion and encounters with various
saints. In Balthasar's words, "A veritable cataract of mystical graces poured over Adrienne in a seemingly chaotic storm that whirled her in all directions at once." He began to accompany her as a spiritual director, in order to help evaluate the experiences. After he became convinced of the authenticity of Speyr's
mysticism, Balthasar and Speyr both began to believe that they had a shared theological mission. Between 1944 and 1960, Speyr dictated to Balthasar some 60 books of spiritual and Scriptural commentary. Given Speyr's responsibilities as a mother and a practicing doctor, Balthasar alone worked to arrange, edit, and publish the texts. In 1947, he founded a publishing house, Johannes Verlag, in
Einsiedeln, Switzerland, where he began to print and distribute her works with ecclesiastical
imprimatur. Some of Speyr's works, namely those of a more explicitly mystical character, were not released until
Pope John Paul II organized a Vatican symposium on her thought in 1985, almost 20 years after her death. In an interview with
Angelo Scola in 1986, Balthasar gave a portrait of his relationship with the "extensive theology" of von Speyr:All I attempted to do was gather it up and embed it in a space, such as the theology of the Fathers, that of the Middle Ages and the modern age, with which I was fairly familiar. My contribution consisted in providing a comprehensive theological horizon, so that all that was new and valid in her thought would not be watered down or falsified, but be given space to unfold. With a mere textbook-theology one could not have captured Adrienne's work; it required a knowledge of the great tradition to realize that her original propositions in no way contradicted it.Von Speyr and von Balthasar also collaborated closely in the founding of the
Johannesgemeinschaft (Community of Saint John), a Catholic
institute of
consecrated laypeople established in 1945, with a mission to work for the sanctification of the world from within the world. It became more widely known three years later when Balthasar produced a theology for secular institutes in his work
Der Laie und der Ordenstand, the first book to be published by Johannes Verlag. After a long discernment, Balthasar would eventually leave the Society of Jesus to found this community, since his superiors did not believe it would be compatible with Jesuit life. He saw it as a "personal, special, and non-delegable task." Speyr referred to the
Johannesgemeinschaft metaphorically as a “Child” she shared with the priest—an analogy that has drawn some criticism but been defended by others. Speyr served as the superior of the women's branch of the community until her death.
Departure from the Jesuits Beginning in 1945, the year in which he published
Das Herz der Welt (
Heart of the World), That same year, his Jesuit superiors informed him that the Society of Jesus could not be answerable for the Community of Saint John, the
secular institute he had begun to organize with Adrienne von Speyr. Feeling that he "was being called by God to certain definite tasks in the Church", he made a 30-day retreat at the request of Father General
Jean-Baptiste Janssens, where the director confirmed that Balthasar, while remaining a priest, should leave the Jesuit order to work with the Community of Saint John. Balthasar considered this a "very grave" step, but in 1950, he officially left the Society of Jesus. He renewed his religious vows a few months later. Shortly before his exit from the society, the
University of Munich offered him a professorship, as a successor to Romano Guardini, but he declined. He remained without a ministerial role in the church until, in 1956, he was
incardinated into the
Diocese of Chur as a
diocesan priest.
Lectures, writing, and publishing (1950–1967) Balthasar's exit from the Jesuits left him "literally on the street", as biographer Peter Henrici notes, and he took up lecture tours across Germany, which helped him provide for himself and fund the Johannes Verlag publishing house. He also continued giving retreats to young people. Between 1950 and 1956, he authored a number of books and articles, including
Therese von Lisieux (
Thérèse of Lisieux) (1950),
Schleifung der Bastionen (
Razing the Bastions) (1952),
Das betrachtende Gebet (
Prayer) (1955), and
Die Gottesfrage des heutigen Menschen (
The God Question and Modern Man) (1956), as well as monograph studies of Georges Bernanos,
Karl Barth, and
Reinhold Schneider. Much of his work during this period—written after the release of
Pope Pius XII's
apostolic constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia, which gave an ecclesiastical blessing to
secular institutes—confronts the question of how Christian discipleship might be lived from within the world. After he was welcomed into the
Diocese of Chur, he settled in the city of
Basel, hosted by his married friends
Werner Kaegi and
Adrienne von Speyr, in whose home he remained until 1967. During this period—although he was diagnosed with leukemia in 1958—Balthasar wrote prolifically, most notably the seven-volume work
Herrlichkeit (The Glory of the Lord) (1961–1967), which was to serve as the first part of a theological trilogy on the three classical
transcendentals of beauty, goodness, and truth. He also translated and edited for Johannes Verlag, with an emphasis on the writing of his collaborator Speyr. Balthasar was not invited to take part in the
Second Vatican Council, which took place during this time, but after the release of
Herrlichkeit, his theological reputation would grow significantly.
Adrienne von Speyr, who had been seriously ill since the mid-1950s, died on September 17, 1967, and Balthasar assumed responsibility for the Community of Saint John.
Later years: Communio and ecclesiastical honors Moving to another house in Basel, Balthasar continued to write, edit, and translate extensively. In 1969,
Pope Paul VI appointed him to the
International Theological Commission. He worked as a theological secretary at the
Second Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in 1971, penning the synod document on priestly spirituality, and he also received the from the Catholic Academy of Bavaria. With
Joseph Ratzinger and Henri de Lubac, he founded the international theological journal
Communio in 1971, with collaboration from members of the Italian
Communion and Liberation movement, including
Angelo Scola. The journal was conceived as a more traditionally minded alternative to the progressive
Concilium, and Balthasar described its mission in terms of courage: "[T]his truth we believe in strips us bare. Like lambs among wolves. It is not a matter of bravado, but of Christian courage, to expose oneself to risk." Karol Wojtyła became the editor of the Polish edition of the review. Later in the 1970s, he was given fellowships at the
British Academy and the
Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, in addition to prizes for translation. In 1984 John Paul II awarded him the first
Paul VI International Prize for his contributions to theology. Balthasar's reputation had risen to the extent that John Paul II announced plans to make him a
cardinal on 29 May 1988. He died, however, in his home in Basel on 26 June 1988, two days before the ceremony which would have granted him that rank. He is buried in the cemetery of the
Church of St. Leodegar im Hof (Hofkirche) in Lucerne. ==Theology==