Apostolic Field Vicar
The Apostolic Field Vicar (or Apostolic Vicar of the Imperial and Royal Army) was the highest Roman Catholic clergyman for the army in the Habsburg Monarchy from 1733 to 1918. He was in charge of the Apostolic Field Vicariate within the Imperial and Royal Military Pastoral Care .
The Apostolic Field Vicar was appointed by the Emperor and confirmed by the Holy See . He was entitled to ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the imperial army in times of war and peace. The exact scope of this jurisdiction was laid down in the Court War Council Ordinance of October 5, 1808, but remained controversial and was subject to some changes over time.
When the diocesan borders were redrawn in 1785, the diocese of Wiener Neustadt was abolished. The then bishop of Wiener Neustadt, Johann Heinrich von Kerens , was also the first apostolic field vicar and remained so as bishop of the newly created diocese of St. Pölten . His successors, the Bishops Hohenwart and Crüts van Creits , were also entrusted with the office of Apostolic Field Vicar . The connection between the two offices was already interrupted under St. Pölten's Bishop Dankesreither , even if it existed again under Bishop Pauer from 1824 to 1826 and later also under Bishops Wagner and Leonhard and again under Bishop and Military Vicar Žak . The seat of the Apostolic Field Vicariate was subsequently relocated to Vienna in 1826, where the field consistorial chancellery was already responsible for the chancellery of military church affairs (until 1871 also the military-religious marriage jurisdiction ).
literature
- Emerich Bielik: History of the KuK military pastoral care and the Apostolic Field Vicariate: on the order of His Episcopal Grace of the Most Revered Mr. Apostolic Field Vicar Dr. Coloman Belopotoczky. Vienna 1901.
- Roman Hans Gröger , Claudia Ham, Alfred Sammer: Between heaven and earth. Military pastoral care in Austria. Graz u. a. 2001.
- Erwin Gatz (ed.): The bishops of the German-speaking countries 1785/1803 to 1945. A biographical lexicon. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-428-05447-4 .