Thomas Instituut te Utrecht (Tilburg University)

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Prof. dr. F. (Ferdinand) J.A. de Grijs (†)

Prof. dr. Ferdinand J.A. de Grijs (1931-2011) was priest of the Archdiocese of Utrecht (1956), and the founder of the Thomas Instituut te Utrecht (1990).

De Grijs did his dissertation (1967) on Aquinas’s theological anthropology in his Scriptum (Goddelijk mensontwerp (God’s design of man), 2 volumes) under the supervision of Edward Schillebeeckx, Nijmegen. His main theological teacher, however, was the predecessor of Schillebeeckx, G.P. Kreling o.p., about whom he and others published a book in 1979: Het goddelijk geheim (The divine mystery
In 1967 De Grijs was appointed full professor in systematic theology, the history of dogma and the history of theology at the then newly erected Catholic Theological University of Utrecht. He served this university as its rector when the institutes of Utrecht and Amsterdam merged in 1991. De Grijs was the supervisor of the doctoral theses of Pim Valkenberg, Henk Schoot, Harm Goris and Carlo Leget.

In 1995 he retired, and moved to the small town of Baars, the Netherlands. His successor on the chair of systematic theology was Herwi Rikhof. The Jaarboek Thomas Instituut te Utrecht 1995 contains a number of studies relevant to the theological authorship of De Grijs (Rikhof, Haarsma, Winkeler), as well as a bibliography (Schoot).

In 2010 a first volume of his study of the person of Jesus Christ, entitled Onze Heer (Our Lord) was published by Valkenhof Pers, Nijmegen, followed by the second volume in 2011. A month before this last book - Onze Heer II- appeared in print, Ferdinand de Grijs died at Baars on 10 August 2011.