Fr. Heinrich Wilhelm Pfeiffer S.J. died in Berlin on Friday 26 November. Fr Pfeiffer was born in Tübingen (Germany) on 22 February 1939. He became a member of the Society of Jesus on 22nd April 1963, was ordained a priest on 13th July 1969, and received his Licentiate in Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1970.

In 1971 he began teaching at the Gregoriana as professor of the History of Christian Art in the Faculty of Ecclesiastical History, and in 1973 he obtained a Doctorate in Art History from the University of Basel, with a dissertation on the title: Zur Ikonographie von Raffaels Disputa. Egidio da Viterbo und die christlich-platonische Konzeption der Stanza della Segnatura, published in 1975 in the series "Miscellanea Historiae Pontificiae" (vol. 37).

After moving permanently to the Gregorian University, he taught in the Faculty of Ecclesiastical History, which later became the Faculty of History and Cultural Heritage of the Church, until 2014. From 1996 to 2004 he was also Director of the Advanced Course for the Cultural Heritage of the Church. In 1998 he was appointed a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church for five years. He has been a member of the editorial board or the scientific committee of several journals, including Archivum Historiae Pontificiae and the cultural journal of the Focolare Movement, Nuova Umanità. Among his numerous and profound scientific publications, one of the most important is La Sistina svelata: Iconografia di un capolavoro ("The Sistine Unveiled: Iconography of a Masterpiece"), in which the philosophical-theological programme is explained through a systematic analysis of each fresco.

Becoming Professor emeritus in 2009, after more than forty years Fr Pfeiffer left the Gregorian in 2014, moving to Palermo to the Casa Professa, Residenza del Santissimo Nome di Gesù. Since 2019, he had been living in Germany, in the Jesuit Community of St Peter Favre in Berlin. "I invite you to join us in a communion of prayer," concludes Rector Gonçalves in his Letter to the University Community, "and to give thanks to the Lord for the intellectual commitment and university dedication of Fr Pfeiffer during so many years of teaching and presence in our University."