14 minSummaryRead it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if forms, stamps and rules take on a life of their own?
In The Holy Bureaucrazius, Rudolf Greinz turns the world of officialdom into a merry legend. This short comic tale borrows the shape of a saint’s life to tease everyday human habits. Offices and paperwork become material for a warm, lightly mocking look at the absurdity of red tape.
Greinz brings the warmth of an Alpine storyteller to a subject that can feel anything but warm. His mock-solemn tone invites you to laugh at bureaucracy rather than wrestle with it. Alongside the rules and forms sits the idea of holy foolishness: apparent silliness that makes room for plain truths and common sense.
What you’ll discover
- A legend with a wink Enjoy a familiar storytelling form turned toward the comic habits of everyday life.
- The absurdity of red tape See offices, forms and stamps become the targets of light, affectionate satire.
- Foolishness and common sense Explore the contrast between seeming silly and seeing what cleverness can miss.
- A mock-solemn voice Find pleasure in a serious-sounding manner that makes human habits seem all the funnier.
- Warmth behind the teasing Spend time with humour that smiles at human habits rather than scolding them.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this if you love broad, bouncy satire, comic saints, mock sermons, and jokes about forms, stamps, and office counters.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Obedience makes humans look like cattle
- Paperwork produces a patron saint
- Heaven wants a fool for company
- The clerk bows upward and kicks downward
- Forms promise freedom from thinking
- A greasy thumb replaces thought
- Barking and regulations keep people obedient
- Absurd pictures expose official pretensions
Who’s who
- Father HilariusA round, wine-loving Tyrolean monk who preaches that people are cattle and then sets out to write the legend of their patron saint.
- Saint BureaucraziusA clerk with donkey ears and a climbing tie, made a saint by archangels, who wants the whole world registered, numbered, and stamped.
- Saint StultissimusA shaggy saint who thinks with his big toes, works as stable boy, and helps brew the Respectful Draught of Submission.
- The gray office horseA thin nag in green glasses that eats files, believes they are grass, and carries the saint at a stately trot.
- Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and RaphaelHeaven's messengers who search the earth for the stupidest saint and give him his halo along with twenty-five strokes.
- Saint CorruptiusThe friendliest disciple, who keeps his wits in his pockets and listens best when his hand is filled.
- Kare RevoluzzerA red-haired, red-capped agitator who drives the king away with speeches and then sets his hatred on the saint.
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The Holy Bureaucrazius
A heavenly delegation beats a stuffy clerk twenty-five times and makes him a saint with a halo.
Medium levelUnder 2 hours to read20 languages
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“Whoever knows how to bark needs no evidence.”
In short
What if the patron saint of red tape was chosen by heaven as a joke? That is the idea behind The Holy Bureaucrazius, a comic legend by the Tyrolean writer Rudolf Greinz.
The Holy Bureaucrazius at a glance
- Reading time
- About 1 h 40 min1 h 15 min fast, 1 h 55 min slow
- Length
- 23,200 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Tyrolean monk preaches that humans are cattle
Father Hilarius is a stout Tyrolean monk who is round from eating and wet from wine. He believes bacon dumplings turn into phosphorus in the brain and bring good sense at forty. That is why all sensible people are Tyroleans.
On a Saturday in Lent he eats seven dumplings, each the size of a bowling ball, then a mutton roast and fried pastries. He washes it down with about two liters of wine and goes to bed. Next morning he climbs the pulpit and preaches a sermon called Why and How Man Is the Biggest Ox of All.
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Details
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Cite this edition
Greinz, Rudolf. The Holy Bureaucrazius. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-holy-bureaucrazius.
Greinz, R. (2026). The holy Bureaucrazius. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-holy-bureaucrazius
Greinz, Rudolf. The Holy Bureaucrazius. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-holy-bureaucrazius.
@book{greinz2026holy,
author = {Greinz, Rudolf},
title = {The Holy Bureaucrazius},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-holy-bureaucrazius}
}
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What is The Holy Bureaucrazius about?
It is a comic legend about the invented patron saint of red tape. Heaven asks for one stupid saint, three archangels pick a paper-obsessed clerk, and he spreads forms, stamps, and rude officials across the world.
Who is Father Hilarius?
He is the fictional Tyrolean monk who tells the story. Famous for his Lenten sermon calling people cattle, and fond of bacon dumplings and wine, he researches and writes the saint's legend.
What does the name Bureaucrazius mean?
It plays on the word bureaucracy and on the saintly endings of names like Pankrazius and Servazius. The joke is that red tape has its own saint, and that his name sounds a little crazy.
The author
Rudolf Greinz
1866–1942 · Austrian writer
Rudolf Greinz was an Austrian writer born in Innsbruck in 1866. He wrote novels, short stories, poems, and satire in German during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His fiction included works set in Tyrol. He lived in Munich for a time and died in Aldrans, Austria, in 1942.
“Whoever knows how to bark needs no evidence.”
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