Donors of bodies are commemorated at St. Stephen’s Cathedral

The Medical University of Vienna in cooperation with the Catholic and Protestant University Pastoral Care of Vienna invites you to the ecumenical service in St. Stephen’s Cathedral on November 9, 2023 at 6:00 pm to remember the people who gave their bodies to medical research.

The service is led by Father Simon de Cucleri of the Catholic University Community and Catharina Pike, pastor of the Protestant University Community. The ecumenical celebration will be held in St. Stephen’s Cathedral for the first time this year, as the votive church is no longer able to accommodate many participants. Music will be provided by the Vienna Medical University Choir. This service is a thank you to the deceased and an opportunity for relatives, scholars and students to remember and pay respect to the deceased.

The annual service held around All Saints’ Day is an initiative of the Professor’s University. doctor. Michael Breiterkleiber returns, now professor of anatomy at the Medical University of Graz. It was originally held in the Karl Boroughauskirche in the central cemetery, but was moved to the Votive Church due to the large number of visitors, and this year moved to St. Stephen’s Cathedral due to great interest. The ashes of the cadaver donors are buried in a tomb in the Central Cemetery in Vienna. On the afternoon of November 9, wreaths with silent remembrance will be laid there at 2:00 pm in Lot 12A (historic Tomb of Honor, until 1975) and at 3:00 pm in Lot 26 (current Tomb of Honor, since Then (1975).

Vienna and the history of anatomy

The first autopsy was performed in Vienna at the Hospital of the Saint’s Brothers in 1404, despite a ban imposed by the Dean of the Vienna Cathedral. Spirit instead. Despite theological concerns, the Brothers of the Holy Spirit gave space to science. Centuries later, the Jesuits established the “teatrum anatomicum” at the University of Vienna in 1749, and to this day people make their bodies available for medical research after they die.

Cardinal Schönborn commented on the importance of this celebration in a comment in the HEUTE daily newspaper on October 28, 2022: “For a long time there has been a debate about whether it is possible to dissect corpses. Religious reasons spoke against this. The body must remain intact. But the conviction prevailed that performing Research on the bodies of the dead serves the interest of the living. Medicine and religion serve the entire human being, body and soul.