Leonard Bentley
Prince Max of Saxony
The man on the left standing in front of a London Hansom Cab and talking to a monk, is Prince Maximilian Wilhelm Auguust Albert Karl Gregor Odo of Saxony. I believe this is early September 1908 and the 19th International Eucharistic Congress is taking place in London where Prince Max was a delegate. Prince Max was the seventh of eight children born to King George of Saxony, his brother Frederick Augustus was the last King of Saxony, he abdicated in 1918. Prince Max had become a Roman Catholic priest in the early 1890s and renounced all claims to the succession. In 1896 he came to London and was the priest at St. Boniface Church in Union Street, Whitechapel. The church was at the centre of the poor Roman Catholic German community in the east end of London. His time at the church reputedly broke his health and he returned to Dresden in 1897. In this photograph he would have been 38 years old but he looks much older. In 1903 he became a Professor of Canonical Law at Fribourg University in Switzerland.
The London Congress was held in several places, Westminster Cathedral, Albert Hall and the Horticultural and Caxton Halls but I am unable to identify the location of the photograph, at a guess it could be outside The Albert Hall with Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens in the background. In 1910 he wrote an article urging the union of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, after an audience with Pope Pius X he withdrew his article and reaffirmed his belief in the status quo.
During the first world war Prince Max was a German Army Chaplain on the western front and after the war he returned to Fribourg where he died in 1951 aged 80 years.
Prince Max of Saxony
The man on the left standing in front of a London Hansom Cab and talking to a monk, is Prince Maximilian Wilhelm Auguust Albert Karl Gregor Odo of Saxony. I believe this is early September 1908 and the 19th International Eucharistic Congress is taking place in London where Prince Max was a delegate. Prince Max was the seventh of eight children born to King George of Saxony, his brother Frederick Augustus was the last King of Saxony, he abdicated in 1918. Prince Max had become a Roman Catholic priest in the early 1890s and renounced all claims to the succession. In 1896 he came to London and was the priest at St. Boniface Church in Union Street, Whitechapel. The church was at the centre of the poor Roman Catholic German community in the east end of London. His time at the church reputedly broke his health and he returned to Dresden in 1897. In this photograph he would have been 38 years old but he looks much older. In 1903 he became a Professor of Canonical Law at Fribourg University in Switzerland.
The London Congress was held in several places, Westminster Cathedral, Albert Hall and the Horticultural and Caxton Halls but I am unable to identify the location of the photograph, at a guess it could be outside The Albert Hall with Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens in the background. In 1910 he wrote an article urging the union of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, after an audience with Pope Pius X he withdrew his article and reaffirmed his belief in the status quo.
During the first world war Prince Max was a German Army Chaplain on the western front and after the war he returned to Fribourg where he died in 1951 aged 80 years.