Abbot James Zilliox, OSB
James Zilliox was born in Newark, in the shadow of St. Mary’s Church, in the family home on William Street on 14 October 1847, the son of one of Father Balleis’ most prominent parishioners, Jacob Zilliox, who had emigrated from Germany and was a tailor. James was the second of eleven children.
He began his education at St. Mary’s School, but at the tender age of eleven he made up his mind to become a Benedictine monk and priest, and so began studies the following year at St. Vincent College in Pennsylvania. In September 1865 he was invested as a novice and on 8 September 1866 professed simple vows, just a month shy of his nineteenth birthday.
Frater James lived in interesting times in the Church. To confront the intellectual and scientific ferment of the time and to confirm the Church’s authority, Pope Pius IX summoned an Ecumenical Council, the First Vatican Council, in 1869. Abbot Boniface, as president of the American Cassinese Congregation of Benedictines, was among those called to Rome. He departed on 2 October 1869, taking with him two clerical students from St. Vincent who had been selected for study in Rome. One of these was James Zilliox, whose intellectual talents Abbot Boniface had recognized.
James Zilliox made his solemn profession before Archabbot Boniface on 1 January 1870 at St. Elisabeth’s, the house of studies on the Aventine Hill that Wimmer had established in Rome for American Benedictines. (Another source locates this ceremony at the tomb of St. Paul in the monastery/basilica dedicated to him.) Zilliox began studies at the University La Sapienza until events in Italy interrupted both the Vatican Council and his stay in Rome.
These were turbulent times, not only in the Church but also in Italy with the movement for national unification being played out amidst the wars among the great powers of Prussia, Austria and France. The Franco-Prussian War brought an early suspension of the Council in July 1870 with the Piedmontese army entering the Papal States and Rome the following September. Wimmer and all his students had already left the city in July when the Council recessed, as it was thought, for the summer. It never reconvened.
Zilliox first went to study in Ratisbon, Germany, but on 30 October 1871 he entered the Jesuit university at Innsbruck in Austria where he finished his theological studies with distinction and obtained his doctorate. On 23 July 1873, he was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Gregory Scherr, OSB of Munich and Freising, the same Scherr who had been a companion of Boniface Wimmer in the restoration of the Abbey of Metten and had later been elected its abbot. Zilliox was regarded by all as a model of the religious and priestly life, “of amiable temperament, delicate sympathies, and noble character” wrote a contemporary.
Father James returned to St. Vincent and began a distinguished carrier as professor of theology, novice master in 1877 at the age of twenty-seven, prior of the monastery in 1881, and in 1865, director of the seminary. But while abroad he had tasted of the late nineteenth century post-revolutionary European Benedictine restoration led by such key figures as Prosper Guéranger, founder of the Abbey of Solesmes in France (1833), Maurus and Placidus Wolter, founders of the Archabbey of Beuron in Germany (1863), and Hildebrand de Hemptine, founder of Maredsous in Belgium (1872), and Abbot Pierto Casaretto of the Subiaco Congregation (1872).
This monastic re-invention was marked by a certain romanticism and nostalgia for medieval forms. Emphasis was placed on asceticism, enclosure within the monastery, and liturgical solemnity. This represented a departure from the more active and pastoral tradition of Bavarian and Austrian monasteries which had either never been suppressed or, as in the case of Metten, had been revived after a hiatus of only thirty years. It is from this later tradition that Boniface Wimmer had taken his inspiration. Thus the seeds were planted for some degree of tension between the activist agenda of Wimmer and his mission to America, and the contemplative spirit which came to be espoused by various monks of St. Vincent, among them Father James.
It is a tribute to Wimmer that he was able to be sympathetic to both of these disparate views in a sincere desire to attain a balanced monastic life. Wimmer, in fact, favored men like Zilliox with offices of the greatest confidence despite their criticism. There had already been several “reform” movements among St. Vincent monks who objected to Wimmer’s missionary zeal and complained about the allegedly lax discipline at St. Vincent. Father James, novice master at the time, was a key figure in a plot in 1879 to lead some of the younger members to the Trappists at Gethsemane (none of them stayed) and to Beuron in Germany. Wimmer became aware of the conspiracy, replaced Father James as novice master, and posted him to St. Mary’s in Newark. Wimmer, nevertheless, retained great respect for the pious Zilliox, characterizing him as somewhat naïve, and soon returned him to St. Vincent.
By 1881, he appointed Father James prior of the monastery, just in time for the eruption of another series of accusations against Wimmer. A devious monk named Maurice Kaeder played upon Father James’ piety and continued dissatisfaction with conditions at St. Vincent and convinced him to coauthor a letter to Rome containing false accusations against Wimmer, by now an old and tired man of seventy-five.
Abbot Boniface was greatly pained by these calumnies but, buoyed by the supporting testimony of other monks, other abbots of the congregation, and the bishop of Pittsburgh, rode out the storm. He felt constrained, however, to remove Zilliox as prior and assigned him to teach moral theology in the seminary. He wrote of Zilliox as an “innocent sheep” and the source of all the trouble with his “show and praising of Beuron and deprecation of St. Vincent.” Zilliox for his part, found the active orientation of American Benedictinism difficult. “Here I have no rest and have no chance for contemplation, which would be my only delight in this world,” he had written to a friend in 1876.
Thus, a figure of some controversy and of strong views not in accord with the missionary spirit of Wimmer, Zilliox now found himself the first American-born abbot and at age thirty-eight, the youngest in the world. As Wimmer observed, Zilliox who had been dissatisfied with conditions at St. Vincent would now have the opportunity to form a community according to his own vision and perhaps to discover that being the superior was more difficult than he thought. The question was if the newly formed community of Newark was ready for the good zeal of a Zilliox.
Newark’s Bishop Winand Wigger presided at the abbatial blessing at St. Mary’s Church in Newark on 22 July 1885. Our anonymous source describes the event:
The German sermon was preached by Rev. Dr. Heiter of the diocese of Buffalo, while Bishop Becker of Wilmington delivered appropriate remarks in English. Abbot James having received the insignia of his office, received the homage of the following, who henceforth, having transferred their vows, were to be known as capitulars of St. Mary’s Abbey, Newark, New Jersey, Revs. Aloysius Gorman, Theodosius Goth, Cornelius Eckl, Frederick Hoessel, Bonaventure Ostendarp, Leonard Walter, Alexander Reger, Ernest Helmstetter, Hugo Paff, and the cleric Florian Widman. Fathers Ephrem Hetzinger and Polycarp Scherr then absent on mission duty had also cast their lot in with the new abbey.
Abbot James started at once to regulate the affairs of the monastery. Two rooms were converted into a choir chapel; Father Ambrose Huebner was appointed prior, Fr. Cornelius, pastor of St. Mary’s Parish with Fathers Polycarp and Alexander as assistants; Fr. Frederick Hoesel continued as director of the college; Fr. Theodosius Goth was appointed pastor of St. Benedict’s Church. Although the priests of the monastery were engaged in active ministry, one account says, Abbot James so arranged things that the prayer and work of the monks did not suffer.
At the first meeting of the Chapter on 10 August 1885, the six capitulars in attendance voted to sell the Denville farm at a price to be negotiated by Abbot James since the work of the community would be education and not farming. Consequently the Chapter was also in agreement that there would be need for few lay brothers. It is said that because the asking price was set too high the farm was not actually sold until almost ten years later for $18,000. The farm passed into the hands of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother for the purpose of a health resort. Part of the land also became St. Clare’s Hospital and the Franciscan Oaks retirement community.
Thirty years later when the Newark Benedictines were looking for a “little place in the country” and purchased Delbarton for nearly ten times the amount, did they recall with regret their decision to sell the farm in Denville? Reflecting Abbot James’ scholarly bent the Chapter made another interesting decision to purchase for $925 the monumental series of the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Church known as Migne, after the French priest who had published it.
Abbot James served the Newark community for only a short time. He brought with him the zeal for the contemplative life, theological study, and the Beuronese liturgical life that he had yearned for at St. Vincent. The community in Newark, however, resisted his efforts to alter their accustomed pastoral and educational emphasis. His frustration with this resistance and his struggle with tuberculosis caused him to sink into depression and to attempt to resign early in 1886. Rome, however, denied his petition.
Later in the same year, however, he petitioned again and, supported by now-Archabbot Boniface, his resignation was accepted in November 1866, less than two years after he had been elected and only sixteen months after his blessing. During this time he had spent only six months at the abbey. Wimmer made arrangements for Zilliox to retire to St. Vincent and arranged for his personal effects to be packed and shipped there.
Following his resignation, Zilliox made several attempts to find a healthier climate. At the same time, he did not neglect to promote his views about the nature of true Benedictine monasticism. During the summer of 1887 his visit to St. John’s in Minnesota and the extremely critical letter to Abbot Alexius Edelbrock was the catalyst, once again, for an uprising of the contemplative versus the activist factions at St. John’s. The affair caused a rebellion in the community, the interference of Archbishop Ireland of St. Paul, the attention of Rome, the resignation of Abbot Alexius, and sullied the reputation of Abbot James within the congregation.
On 31 December 1890 Abbot James Zilliox died in the home of his parents on William Street in Newark as the bells of the city were ringing in the New Year. While James Zilliox died where he was born, in the shadow of St. Mary’s Abbey Church, and is buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery, the inconvenient fact is that he had transferred his vow of stability back to St. Vincent not long before he died, but it is doubtful that he ever took up residence there again.