Vladimir Ledóchowski

Vladimir Ledochowski

Wladimir Graf Ledóchowski SJ (born October 7, 1866 in Loosdorf near St. Pölten , † December 13, 1942 in Rome ) was a Polish nobleman and the 26th  superior general of the Societas Jesu .

Life

Wladimir Ledóchowski came from an old Polish and Austrian noble family. He was the brother of the blessed founder of the order, Countess Maria Teresia Ledóchowska and the holy founder of the order, Countess Ursula Ledóchowska, and a second nephew of Cardinal Mieczyslaw Halka Ledóchowski .

From 1877 to 1884 Ledóchowski was a student at the Theresianum in Vienna and at the same time worked as a page at the imperial court. After receiving his Matura (Abitur) he studied law in 1884/1885, also in Vienna. In the same year he moved to the seminary in Tarnów . Between 1886 and 1889 Ledóchowski studied philosophy at the Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum in Rome and at the Pontifical Gregorian University Catholic theology . He completed his studies with a doctorate Dr. phil off. In 1889 he entered the Starawies seminary near Cracow and in 1894 received the sacrament of ordination . In 1900 he was appointed rector of the Jesuit College in Cracow. In 1901 he was promoted to vice provincial of the Galician provinces, in the following year he was promoted to provincial of these areas. He held this office until 1906. On September 8, 1906, the newly elected general of the order Franz Xaver Wernz appointed him to the order's secretary in the mother house of the order.

When Wernz died on August 19, 1914, the General Assembly of the Order elected Ledóchowski as the Order's 26th General. He took office in 1915. When Italy entered the war in 1915, he quickly outsourced the administration of the order to Zizers near Chur in Switzerland . After the Vatican had published a revised canon law in 1917 , Ledóchowski had the Jesuit Order's own law adjusted to it in 1923 . From 1938 he appointed Vicar Maurice Schurmans to be his assistant. Count Vladimir Ledóchowski died on December 13, 1942 in Rome at the age of 76. His successor was Jean Baptiste Janssens .

literature

• Hans Wolter:  Ledóchowski, Wladimir Graf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 46 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Pinsker:  Ledóchowski, P. Wladimir Gf .. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 5, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1972, p. 88 f. (Direct links on p. 88 , p. 89 ).
• Hartmut Lohmann:  Wladimir Ledóchowski. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 4, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-038-7 , Sp. 1341-1343.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Geneanet / Robert Baranowski: pedigree Ledóchowski

predecessor	Office	successor
Franz Xaver Wernz	Superior General of the Society of Jesus 1915–1942	Jean Baptiste Janssens