German Missionaries in Australia

Adolf Kristen joined the Society of Jesus at St. Andrä (20 October 1866) and went on to teach at Kalksburg College (1871). He studied theology at Innsbruck and was ordained in 1881. He became prefect at the Mariaschein Jesuit college and completed his tertianship at St. Andrä. ¹

He arrived in Adelaide on 15 October 1884 and at Rapid Creek mission in Darwin in November 1884 together with Br. Sboril, and became assistant priest under Fr. O’Brien at (Old) Uniya on the Daly River. He was a practical man and often completed the jobs of building, fencing and roofing begun by mission residents. The mission diary records that during January 1889 Kristen roofed Zachary's house, finished Joseph's hut, built huts for Daly and the widow Rosa, and finished the huts for Pine Creek and Finiss. He was often called on to settle disputes with neighbours, and in the camp, and he frequently went out hunting and gathering food for the mission. Kristen's contacts in Silesia sent parcels of fabric for clothing for many years.²

In 1894 as the mission entered into moral turmoil his health broke down and he suffered from nervous exhaustion. On 17 November 1895 he read a paper on the progress he and Fr. Conrath had made with the Malak Malak language to the Second Plenary Council of Australia, which considered the future of the Daly River mission (see Jesuits in the Northern Territory). He did not return north from this visit.³

Fr. Kristen continued to work on Aboriginal grammar while working at Jesuit institutions at Kooringa (1895-1898) and Jamestown (1898-1900). 'His work showed an excellent command of English. He was also well versed in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. The grammar is a work of genuine scholarship, but the labour involved probably contributed to his declining health and strength.'⁴

He returned to Austria in 1900 and remained at the Jesuit retreat house in Vienna (1901-1903) before becoming pastor in Innsbruck (1903-1905) and Kapornak, Hungary (1905-1907).⁵