Archdeacon

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Map of the three country chapters divided archdeaconry Trinity of "pen Probst at All Saints " in the diocese of Speyer

Archdeacon (also archdeacon ) was the name of an office holder in the Roman Catholic Church who performed essential administrative tasks as the deputy of a resident bishop from late antiquity to the early modern period . The area for which he was responsible was called the archdiaconate .

Origin of the office of archdeacon

The heads of the deacon council of an episcopal city were used as archdeacon since the 4th century . The archdeacons served the bishop as helpers above all in the welfare of the poor, in the diocesan administration and in the supervision of the lower clergy . The expansion of the church structures in the Franconian Empire led to the displacement of the choir bishops since the 9th century . Instead, the bishops often appointed several archdeacons as ordinary deputies for their spacious and often poorly developed dioceses. The archdeacons were charged with visiting the churches within the dioceses and thus received disciplinary authority over the parish priests. The archdeacons had to pay particular attention to the observance of the church discipline with the clergy and with the population. However, the rights of archdeacons were not uniformly and clearly described, but the specific scope of their official rights could differ from diocese to diocese.

Formation of archdeaconates

Former Archdeacon Church of St. Martin zu Lühnde

The archdeacons were assigned individual parishes, which in older sources were called parish . Since the 11th century, the districts have been referred to as archdeaconates, which themselves could again include several land chapters and deaneries . There was also a further subdivision of the archdeaconate or the deaconate into sedes , i.e. H. Archpriest sit.

The establishment of a territorial area of ​​office partially led to the archdeacon's authority becoming independent. They now also installed priests in their offices and held broadcasting courts in which they could punish clergymen, impose duties on them or suspend them from their offices . They could even have the right to be excommunicated . This made the archdeacons into independent prelates with proper jurisdiction , who could no longer simply be recalled by the bishops, but were almost independent office holders. In extreme cases, a powerful archdeacon severely restricted the bishops' scope of action. Due to the large number of their tasks, archdeacons themselves commissioned officials and vicars with the tasks of their administration from the late 12th century onwards . In other dioceses, however, the archdeacons remained vicars dependent on the bishop. The Mainz Provincial Council of 1310 granted the archdeacons in the dioceses of the ecclesiastical province of Mainz only lower ecclesiastical jurisdiction in matrimonial matters and in matters relating to churches, investiture and usury , up to a total of 20 schillings , while all other matters were given to the diocesan bishops were reserved.

Deacon ordination was originally prescribed as the degree of ordination for archdeacons, but in the end the office was often exercised by priests who, however, had no episcopal ordination. In some dioceses archdeacons nevertheless carried the honorary title of choir bishop. But there were also cases that after ordination they were merely sub-deacons or even lay people, because the office was often linked to fixed benefices in the cathedral chapter or in foundations . As a result, the office of archdeacon could be very profitable.

Rivalry between bishops and archdeacons and decline in office

The extensive rights of the archdeacons and their sometimes considerable income soon led to abuses which councils soon had to fight vigorously. When archdeacons often rivals the bishops in the 13th century, the bishops tried to limit the power of archdeacons. By appointing their own officials and vicars general, they created new auxiliary offices whose tasks competed with those of the archdeacons. In the late Middle Ages the archdeacons continued to lose importance in favor of the power of the bishops. The growing cathedral chapters also tried to limit the influence of the archdeacons.

The Council of Trent took away the independent right of visitation from the archdeacons and made them subject to the special authorization of the bishop. The right to excommunicate was also finally taken away from them, as was the right to conduct church criminal trials or to carry out proceedings against clerics for violating celibacy . With that, most of the archdeaconates disappeared, but some of them were able to maintain their position up to the 19th century because of the religious turmoil caused by the Reformation or because of favorable political circumstances. After that, the title of archdeacon in the Catholic Church became a mere honorary title, which is occasionally awarded as a dignity in the cathedral chapter. Since the central locations of the archdeaconate often lost their important position, especially in northern Germany, large archdeaconate churches from the Romanesque period that have hardly been changed can be found in small towns.

In the Anglican Church, however, the dioceses are still divided into archdeaconates and the title is still used.

See also

literature

  • August Franzen : The Cologne archdeaconate in pre- and post-Tridentine times. A church and church historical study of the nature of the archdeaconates and the reasons for their continued existence before and after the Council of Trent. Münster 1953 (= Reformation history studies and texts. Volume 78/79).
  • Franz Gescher: The dean's office and archdeaconate in Cologne in their creation and first development. A contribution to the constitutional history of the German Church in the Middle Ages. Stuttgart 1919; Reprint Amsterdam 1963 (= canon law treatises. Volume 95).
  • Manfred Groten: Archidiakon , in: Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3rd edition (LThK³), Volume 1, Freiburg 1993, Sp. 947-948.
  • Karl Joseph von Hefele : Archidiacon and Archidiaconat , in: Wetzer and Welte's Kirchenlexikon , Vol. 1, Freiburg 1882, Sp. 1253–1256 ( digitized version )
  • Johannes Naumann: Diocese , in: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE), Vol. 6, Berlin 1980, pp. 701–702.
  • Bernhard Panzram: Archdeacon . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 1, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-7608-8901-8 , column 896 f.
  • Willibald M. Plöchl: History of Canon Law II . Vienna 1962, especially p. 146 ff.
  • Karl-Albert Zölch: The bishops of Speyer at the time of Emperor Friedrich II. (Dissertation at the University of Heidelberg). Heidelberg 2014 PDF

Remarks

  1. ^ Manfred Groten: Archidiakon , in: Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3rd edition (LThK³), Volume 1, Freiburg 1993, Sp. 947
  2. ^ Manfred Groten: Archidiakon , in: Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3rd edition (LThK³), Volume 1, Freiburg 1993, Sp. 948.
  3. ↑ a b Johannes Naumann: Bistum , in: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE), Vol. 6, Berlin 1980, p. 702.
  4. ^ Land chapters were also called rural chapters or archdeaconate parishes; see. Land chapter Grüningen or Land chapter Roßdorf .
  5. ↑ a b Johannes Naumann: Bistum , in: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (TRE), Vol. 6, Berlin 1980, p. 703.

Web links

Wiktionary: Archidiakonat  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations