Anton Durcovici

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Portrait in the new cathedral of Iasi
Reliquary with earth from his place of death

Anton Durcovici (born May 17, 1888 in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg , Austria ; † December 10, 1951 in Sighet prison ) was a Roman Catholic Bishop of Iași (Jassy), and between 1948 and 1949 also Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Bucharest . He was beatified on May 17, 2014.

Life

Anton Durkowitsch (as the spelling at the time of his birth) was born as the son of Franz Durkowitsch, day laborer in the quarry, and Maria Durkowitsch, née. Mittermaier was born in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg in Lower Austria. When he was six years old, his father died at the age of only 36 from a war disease that he suffered as a soldier in the Bosnian campaign (1878). The penniless mother then moved with her two sons Franz and Anton von Bad Deutsch-Altenburg to Jassy in Romania. A widowed aunt of Maria Durkowitsch ran an inn in Jassy, ​​which she had established together with an Austrian husband who had been adventurous but died in 1895. Marie Durkowitsch and her two sons were willingly accepted there. It was here that Anton learned Romanian, and the family changed their name to "Durcovici". The aunt gave up her inn in Jassy in 1898 and moved to Bucharest with Marie Durcovici and her two sons. There Anton became an altar boy at the monastery chapel of the Institute of the English Misses and found his way to a spiritual career as a young boy. Anton Durcovici attended the St. Joseph Seminary in Bucharest from 1898 to 1906 and then continued to study from 1906 to 1911 at the Pontifical Urban University in Rome . He was ordained priest on September 24, 1910 in the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano . In 1911 he received his doctorate in philosophy at the Angelicum and in theology at the Pontifical Urban University . Back at home he was active in the parish ministry for years. 1931 awarded him the Romanian king Charles II. The Order of the Star of Romania . In 1935 he was appointed vicar general by Archbishop Alexandru Theodor Cisar , he was chancellor of the diocesan curia and professor at the St. Joseph Seminary in Bucharest.

Epitaph in the Assumption Cathedral in Iași

On October 30, 1947 he was appointed by Pope Pius XII. to the Roman Catholic diocesan bishop appointed by Jassy and received on 5 April 1948 by the apostolic nuncio , Archbishop Gerald O'Hara , the episcopal ordination . Co- consecrators were the Archbishop of Bucharest, Alexandru Theodor Cisar, and Bishop Marcu Glaser , the Apostolic Administrator of Jassy. The solemn enthronement in the Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary in Jassy took place on April 14, 1948.

On June 26, 1949, Bishop Durcovici was arrested and tortured by the Communist State Police Securitate . The main trigger of the cruel repression against him was his - to the last indomitable - refusal to sign a "cultural statute" which would have separated the Catholic Church from Rome and converted it into a kind of Romanian Catholic national church. He died of starvation and malnutrition in Sighet Prison on the night of December 10-11, 1951 .

beatification

A process for his beatification was initiated in 1997. On October 31, 2013, Pope Francis signed the decree recognizing Anton Durcovici as a martyr. On May 17, 2014, he was finally beatified in a solemn ceremony in Jassy.

Web links

Commons : Anton Durcovici  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Florian Müller: Dr. Anton Durkowitsch. A martyr of our time . Donzdorf 1991.
  2. ^ Revue des Ordinations Épiscopales, Issue 1948, Number 25
  3. ↑ a b Jonathan Luxmoore: Romanian Catholic bishop martyred by Communists beatified tomorrow , Catholic Herald, May 16, 2014 (English)
  4. ↑ See Memorial Sighet .
  5. ↑ Biography on the homepage of the Diocese of Iași
  6. ↑ Promulgation des décrets  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Vatican Information Service, October 31, 2013.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.vis.va  
  7. ^ Bishop Anton Durcovici beatified in the Vorarlberg Catholic Church on May 20, 2014, accessed on February 11, 2015
predecessor Office successor
Mihai Robu Bishop of Iași
1947–1951 		Petru Pleşca
personal data
SURNAME Durcovici, Anton
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Durkowitsch, Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian clergyman, Roman Catholic Bishop of Jassy
DATE OF BIRTH May 17, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Deutsch-Altenburg
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 1951
Place of death Sighet prison