The Bishop of Görlitz, Wolfgang Ipolt, was also born in the small Thuringian town.
However, the city that attracted him on his spiritual career path was a different one: Erfurt, the capital of Thuringia on the river Gera.
This is where Ipolt studied theology, where he was ordained a priest on 30 June 1979, where he worked as a chaplain in the 1980s and then as a sub-rector in the seminary from 1989, the year of reunification.
After gaining experience as a parish priest in Nordhausen and as a lecturer in preaching at the pastoral seminary in Neuzelle, he returned to the Erfurt seminary as rector in 2004.
Ipolt's personal turning point came during Pope Benedict XVI's term of office: in 2011, the German Pope appointed him Bishop of Görlitz, the easternmost and smallest diocese in Germany.
Just under 30,000 Catholics still live here.
The diocese stretches from Lower Lusatia in Brandenburg to the north-eastern part of Upper Lusatia in Saxony.
It is also a bridgehead to Poland. Görlitz, for example, shares the city with the Polish town of Zgorzelec.
Ipolt's favourite project: the new foundation of Neuzelle
Anyone who experiences Ipolt in everyday life at his episcopal see, as the internet portal katholisch.de did during a visit in 2020, gains the impression of a man with focussed energy. He wants to impart knowledge of the faith.
Ipolt's favourite project fits in with this: the re-founding of Neuzelle Abbey by the Cistercians - 200 years after the order was expelled from there by the Prussian state.
Much has been written about this plan to revive a baroque monastery complex to spiritual life in the de-Christianised Oder-Spree region of all places.
Ipolt went ahead with the plan.
Together with the Cistercians of the Austrian monastery of Heiligkreuz, whose abbot Maximilian Heim initially rejected Ipolt's proposal.
However, Ipolt did not give up and was also able to cleverly get political players such as Brandenburg's SPD Minister of Culture Martina Münch and later her successor Manja Schüle interested in the project.
Since 2018, there has once again been a permanent Cistercian monastery in Neuzelle, now with nine monks and one novice.
With the blessing of the state-run Neuzelle Abbey Foundation, which continues to own the Neuzelle monastery complex, which attracts over 120,000 tourists a year as the northernmost example of southern German and Bohemian Baroque in Europe.
However, the man from Gotha is considered conservative when it comes to church policy issues.
In the reform dialogue of the Catholic Church in Germany, the Synodal Way, he voted - unlike the vast majority of bishops - against a vote for more participation of women in ministries and offices of the Catholic Church and against a text that would allow lay people to preach at masses.
He abstained from the votes on a doctrinal re-evaluation of homosexuality and considerations on relaxing celibacy.
Persistent in his goals
Ipolt is a man who acts in precisely composed contexts.
On the walls of his detached house in Görlitz you can see a copy of his episcopal certificate of appointment, a joint photo with Pope Benedict XVI, a small statue of Hedwig von Andechs, the patron saint of the Görlitz diocese, and an icon of the Virgin Mary.
His episcopal coat of arms is adorned with the wheel of Mainz, which is part of the Erfurt city coat of arms, while a pierced book is reminiscent of St Boniface, as Ipolt was once baptised in the parish of St Boniface in Gotha.
Silesian lilies symbolise the close connection between the diocese of Görlitz and the archbishopric of Breslau/Wroclaw, to which it belonged until 1972.
Ipolt's motto as bishop is "Odorem notitiae Christi manifestare" (Spread the odour of the knowledge of Christ) - an indication that he persistently pursues his spiritual goals.
In the "Thüringische Landeszeitung" newspaper, Ipolt once explained what he considers to be the greatest threat to social coexistence: "Without God, our society becomes merciless. Without God, it loses certain standards."
That sounded a bit like the legendary "Gothaer Fire Insurance Bank".
For Bishop Wolfgang Ipolt, nothing works without a heavenly letter of protection.