Lay Catholicism
Former ZdK President Meyer is dead
Hans Joachim Meyer is dead. The former ZdK president died at the age of 87. photo
© Jörg Carstensen/dpa
He led the lay German Catholics for more than ten years. Previously, he was a minister in the GDR’s only freely elected government under de Maizière. Hans Joachim Meyer died on Friday.
The former president of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) is dead. According to the ZdK, Hans Joachim Meyer died at the age of 87. Meyer was at the head of the lay representation of Catholics in Germany from 1997 to 2009. The CDU politician was previously Saxon State Minister for Science and Art. After the fall of the Wall, Meyer was Minister for Education and Science in the only freely elected government in the GDR under Lothar de Maizière from April to October 1990. The “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” previously reported.
“Hans Joachim Meyer was a stroke of luck for the ZdK as president with an East German background,” said acting president Irme Stetter-Karp, according to the statement. “He had a significant influence on the growing together of Catholics in East and West, knew how to bring different worlds together and promote mutual understanding with brilliant analyzes of German-German reality.”
Numerous appreciations
“With the death of Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Meyer, a committed Catholic and sincere politician is leaving us. In addition to his political commitment, his commitment to the Catholic Church was just as important to him,” said the chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, Georg Bätzing, to Deutsche Press agency on Meyer’s death. He is a courageous and committed member of the Pastoral Synod of the Catholic Church in the been GDR. His time as President of the ZdK will not be forgotten.
Bätzing continued: “For him it was always important to seek dialogue between church and politics. He accompanied the German Bishops’ Conference in a critical and constructive manner. We will not forget him and will pray for him in this hour of farewell.”
Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) praised Meyer as an outstanding personality. “We in Saxony have a lot to thank him for. He shaped reunification with impressive moral straightforwardness. He laid the foundations for the successful Saxon science system and, even after his departure, continued to take a stand for the freedom and independence of science,” wrote Kretschmer on X (formerly Twitter).