The Apostle of South Africa. Adalbert Ludwig Balling

of the many occasions which could have robbed him of all courage and confidence. But he stood his ground even when Turkish officials tried to put a stop to the new monastery by citing the Koran to him.

      Abbot Francis:

      “We had hired day labourers at twenty-one Turkish groschen (pennies) a square meter to help us lay a solid foundation. Sand, though not terribly clean, was taken from a level patch of ground by the Vrbas and bricks were burnt at the brickyard in Krcevina. Firing the bricks required a large amount of firewood and a road for transport. Bricks were made and stones quarried by hired labour who also loaded the carts which were drawn by two gray Styr horses. These huge beasts easily made the trip to and fro between the kiln and the quarry a hundred times and more. Limestone was a problem. Since we did not have the right quality of lime we had to buy it from neighbouring peasants. All building timbers and boards were sewn at the mills by the river Sava on the other side of Old Gradiska six hours distant and then rafted across the Vrbas. Everything worked out alright until one day the Pasha showed up at the building site, accompanied by a whole squad of sabered officials. ‘What are you up to?!’ he shouted. ‘You are building a fortress! I say: Stop it’!”

      Each time Fr. Francis demanded to see the regulations black on white and then usually ignored them. He knew fully well, for example, that by Turkish law Christians were allowed to build “only with wood and clay”. But what options did such laws leave him? Mollify the shouting Pasha with bakshish? The Pasha would have liked that and probably turned a blind eye to the building. However, the Vorarlberger would not stoop that low. “With a few hundred ducats I could have swayed the Pasha, but bribery was out of the question. I never learned that trade.”

      Like two bulls interlocking horns neither the Turk nor the Vorarlberger was ready to budge an inch. However, the time came when Fr. Francis had enough of intrigues and wrangling. He threatened the Pasha that he would appeal to the sultan in Constantinople. His words came to the ears of the Austrian consul who did all in his power to restore peace between the loggerheads without, however achieving anything. Instead, Fr. Francis sent Br. Zacharias to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vienna to obtain an introductory letter for him to the Sublime Porte. Armed with this letter he travelled to Istanbul to present it to the Grand Vizier in person. The journey was all but safe. Was the Pasha not known to use any means available, such as hiring highwaymen to eliminate an opponent? Fr. Franz was warned. Under cover of dark he had himself rowed across the Vrbas. On the opposite bank a horse carriage was waiting for him of the kind people used for transporting prune plums in huge vats. On this occasion one of these vats was conveniently left empty. No sooner had he let himself down in it, the driver covered it and immediately gave the horses the spurs. Eight hours to the border – plenty of time for the adventurer monk to pray for protection and the success of his mission!

      In Istanbul the Franciscans – “Italians, all of them” – generously accommodated him. Was he ever happy now to have learned their language twenty years earlier in Padua! Baron von Osten-Prokesch, the Austrian ambassador to the Sublime Porte, to whom he reported the very next day, promised him assistance. He appointed an attaché to accompany him not only to the imperial palace but also to the residences of the Sultan’s officials. Fr. Francis armed himself with a lot of patience for not only in Rome but also here in Istanbul the clocks ticked differently. He waited for three months until the Sultan finally stooped to attend to his request by issuing him with an edict that authorized him to build “a private home with sixty rooms”.

      Abbot Francis:

      “I was promised the document but it took another week before it was actually issued, signed and sealed. The dragoman (ambassador’s interpreter) was a very fine man. Not only did he insist on sending for my ticket but he also paid for it from his own pocket. – I do not have words to describe the joy and satisfaction I felt when Constantinople lay again behind me. If I had won the California gold mines I could not have been happier.”

       Challenges no End

      Armed with the all-important decree, Fr. Franz returned to Mariastern to face the Pasha with more bargaining power. Construction had continued but so had the Pasha’s interferences. Fr. Franz faced him unafraid.

      Abbot Francis:

      “The first thing to be completed was the stone wall followed by the brickwork. Thank God, fall blessed us with favourable weather … Since we could only buy building timbers, rafters and boards at Krain, we had to transport them as far as Alt-Gradiska (both in today’s Slovenia) and from there in a ten-hour haul to Mariastern. The labor was one thing, the rivers, another. We had to negotiate two, including our wild Vrbas which had as yet no bridge. Crossing it without the aid of a single machine proved a feat of “engineering”! It showed how resourceful, no: brilliant my monks were! They first offloaded the timber and iron; then they dismantled the waggon, carried its parts and everything else through the water, reassembled the waggon on the opposite bank and, having reloaded it, drove it to the building site … In this way we carted all the materials we needed, including nails, because nothing was available in the godforsaken Banjaluka. The only building materials we could produce ourselves without the use of special equipment, were limestone and bricks.”

      On 12 September 1870, sorely tried Fr. Franz wrote to his friend and benefactor, Bishop Fessler of St. Poelten. The authorities in Constantinople had not only been delighted about Mariastern’s plan to open an orphanage, but they had actually asked him to establish a school as well.

      “In Constantinople I saw a rare sight: different religious communities – Jesuits, Lazarists, Benedictines, Dominicans, Reformed Franciscans, Franciscan Conventuals, Capuchins, Daughters of Lyon and Sisters of Mercy – living peacefully side by side and undisturbed by Turks, Greeks or Armenians … The Lord is good to us. Though the jug of oil and the jar of flour have been empty several times already, they have always been filled again. The building eats up what meagre funds we have; still, we make progress. Forty brick makers and twenty bricklayers, eighty labourers in all, demand a good chunk of bread every day. Thank God, so far we have been able to provide them … We are a community of twelve, including seven novices. All are Germanspeaking. – A railway is under construction at a short distance from our monastery. It begins at the Austrian border and, cutting across Bosnia, continues all the way to Constantinople. We could not be in a better position than we are. Incidentally, the Bosnian name for Mariastern is Marija Zvijezda.”

      We return now to the incident we mentioned before. It was something that happened towards the end of 1870 and grievously disappointed Fr. Franz. Just before Christmas his Brothers abandoned him. They left Mariastern to seek their luck elsewhere. Only the novices stayed. The ringleaders of the deserters were two priests who convinced the others to follow them. Biegner who was only a postulant at the time, also packed to leave. He told Fr. Franz that he was disillusioned: “Reverend Father, since you are leaving, I have no choice but to go as well.” – Leave? His superior was utterly taken aback. The conspiracy had been carefully hidden from him. “Leave!” he exclaimed. “I will not leave. But if you wish to go, do so by all means. I am not keeping you.” Then musing as if to himself, he added: “Now it will be seen whether God wants Mariastern or not.”

      Biegner stayed and, to anticipate our story a little, the others returned, but not before the worst was over. That year the weather played crazy. First, the Vrbas flooded the lower pastures and then it snowed nonstop. Temperatures dropped to –18 °C. It was so cold that the wolves left their dens and prowled around the neighbourhood, sniffing for food at the shelters where the hired hands lived. No one and nothing moved. Correspondence with Mariawald and Oelenberg was at an all-time low. As if these were not trials enough, on 17 January 1871 the cook died after professing his simple vows. “Br. Fridolin died a holy death,” Fr. Francis drily wrote in the monastery chronicle.

      Decades later, Fr. Joseph Biegner wrote a Pro Memoriam for Br. Fridolin. “He was our first novice and a devout monk. Though a trained mason, he was made to cook. Cooking in those days was not a big thing. Our diet was more than frugal, consisting of maize porridge three times a day and, if we were lucky, a thin soup at noon with a few stray beans floating on top. We ate with wooden spoons and were happy and content. We followed the good example our Prior17 gave us, in the belief that the life we lived was normal for Trappists.