Bavarian Concordat (1817)

The Bavarian Concordat of October 24, 1817 is a state church treaty concluded between the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Holy See .

negotiations

Johann Casimir von Häffelin

The secularization of ecclesiastical property and the mediatization of the ecclesiastical imperial estates in 1803 meant the downfall of the previously existing imperial church and made it necessary to reorganize relations with the church in the states of the Holy Roman Empire .

In 1806, the Kingdom of Bavaria began negotiating a Concordat with the Holy See; In 1807 it suspended this. After the end of the Napoleonic era and the turmoil associated with it, the Bavarian Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of the Interior, which was responsible for church affairs, began again with internal preparations in 1814; In 1816 negotiations were resumed. The Bavarian envoy to the Holy See, Bishop Johann Casimir Häffelin , conducted the talks and so far met the wishes of the Curia for a softening of parity and state supervisory rights that the government in Munich rejected several drafts of a concordat.

On July 5, 1817 - after Montgela 's release in February - Häffelin signed a text that had previously been rejected by the Bavarian government, after it had been changed slightly, without consulting the Bavarian government. The Kingdom of Bavaria wanted to avoid snubbing the Holy See by revoking the signature; King Max I Joseph ratified it on October 24, 1817 after a few minor changes that had been renegotiated in favor of Bavaria.

The contents of the 1817 Concordat

Lothar Anselm Freiherr von Gebsattel, first Archbishop of Munich-Freising

As a first step towards the rewrite of the Catholic dioceses in Germany after the Congress of Vienna , the Concordat in Article II created a new church organization for the entire territory of the Kingdom of Bavaria with the two archbishoprics of Munich-Freising and Bamberg , each of which has three suffragan dioceses (Munich-Freising: Augsburg , Passau , Regensburg ; Bamberg: Eichstätt , Speyer , Würzburg ). On the one hand, this fulfilled the Bavarian will to bring state and church borders into line; on the other hand, the Curia successfully refused the Bavarian demand for a single church province, which would then have had the characteristics of a state diocese.

As compensation for the expropriations of secularization, the Bavarian state took over the precisely defined salaries of the archbishops, bishops and members of the cathedral chapter in Articles IV, V and VI , as well as the provision of buildings for the diocesan administration and aid for the maintenance of the boys 'and priests' seminars and for old people's homes for “well-deserved clergy”. Article VII stipulated that "for teaching the youth in religion and the sciences, or for a part in pastoral care, or for nursing the sick" some monasteries should be rebuilt.

The Bavarian king was in Article IX, the right of nomination granted for all eight Bavarian bishoprics. The Pope only canonically appoint those appointed by the king to their office. The king's great influence on high church offices was also ensured by the bishops' oath of obedience and loyalty, as set out in Article XV. Furthermore, in Article X, the king secured the right of nomination for the cathedral deans and in the odd months also for the cathedral capitals (in the even months the bishop and the cathedral chapter shared the right of appointment; the cathedral provosts , on the other hand, were appointed by the pope). Article XI also ensured the monarch influence over the lower church offices, as he was allowed to present the candidates for the sovereign parishes and to confirm those named in all other parishes.

Article XII, on the other hand, guaranteed the church freedom in its spiritual tasks and "communication (...) in spiritual and ecclesiastical matters" with the Pope and the faithful and extended the powers of the ecclesiastical courts back to "spiritual matters and especially matrimonial matters" . This largely removed the traditional rights of control over the church that the state had acquired since the 16th century (e.g. the placet on church publications and the influence on the training of priests) as well as the amortization laws passed in the second half of the 18th century . In this regard, Article XVI also stipulated that "by current agreement (...) the laws, ordinances and orders previously given in Bavaria, insofar as they contradict them, are to be regarded as repealed."

Articles XIII and XIV contained protective provisions for the church, according to which the state had to prevent the dissemination of books that were "contrary to the faith, good morals or church discipline" and not to disparage, abuse or disregard the church and its officials was allowed to allow.

Evaluation and consequences

The Concordat secured the state great influence over the church by participating in the filling of both high and low church offices. The strong position, which was also granted to the Catholic Church, aroused uncertainty and indignation among liberal Catholics and Protestants, who feared, due to some passages of the Concordat, that the state would renounce its sovereignty over the Church and which has been practiced in civil law since 1801 Tolerance policy and the full parity of the three Christian denominations (Catholics, Lutherans, Reformed) set out in the religious edicts of 1803 and 1809 .

To counter this, Max I. Joseph issued the "Edict on the external legal relationships of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Bavaria, in relation to religion and ecclesiastical societies" (religious edict of 1818) as an annex to the constitution on June 17, 1818 and on November 7, 1818 a "Royal Declaration concerning the II. Constitutional Supplement and its annexes", in which the previously practiced tolerance and parity policy was confirmed. At the same time, the Concordat was simply proclaimed as a simple law and added as an appendix to the religious edict, which was itself part of the constitution, in order to clarify the priority of the religious edict.

Even if "the Bavarian state practice (...) was based on the religious edict" (E. Weis) and the concordat was in multiple contradiction to the religious edict, the concordat remained from 1817 until the end of the Bavarian monarchy in 1918 (see Ludwig III. (Bavaria) #Reformversuche und Fall ) in force and was mutually respected as far as possible. The Bavarian Concordat from 1924 replaced the Concordat from 1817 and is still in force today with changes.

source

Bavarian Concordat from 1817. In: Karl Hausberger: State and Church after Secularization. On the Bavarian Concordat Policy in the Early 19th Century. St. Ottilien 1983, pp. 309-329.

Remarks

↑ today there are seven: Bamberg, Eichstätt, Würzburg, Munich and Freising, Augsburg, Passau, Regensburg

literature

Concordat between the Holy See in Rome and the Kingdom of Bavaria. Passau 1817 ( digitized ).
Hans Ammerich (ed.): The Bavarian Concordat 1817. Weißenhorn 2000.
Hermann-Joseph Busley : The royal right of nomination for the bishops in Bavaria. Studies on the Bavarian Concordat of 1817. In: ZBLG 56 (1993), pp. 317-340.
Hermann-Joseph Busley: The Concordat of 1817. In: Hildebrand Troll (ed.): Church in Bavaria. Relationship to rule and state over the course of the centuries. Catalog for the exhibition of the Bavarian Main State Archives on the occasion of the 88th German Catholic Convention in 1984 in Munich. Munich 1984, pp. 180-195.
Georg Franz-Willing: The Bavarian Vatican Embassy 1803-1934. Munich 1965.
Karl Hausberger : State and Church after secularization. On the Bavarian Concordat Policy in the Early 19th Century. St. Ottilien 1983.
Winfried Müller: Between secularization and concordat. The reorganization of the relationship between state and church 1803-1821. In: Walter Brandmüller (ed.): Handbook of Bavarian Church History. Volume 3. From the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss to the Second Vatican Council. Sankt Ottilien 1991, pp. 85-129.
Eberhard Weis: The Concordat of 1817, the Religious and Protestant Edict of 1818, the Tegernsee Declaration of 1821. In: Ders: The foundation of the modern Bavarian state under King Max I (1799-1825) (§5 The internal development since Montgelas 'Fall (1817-1825)). In: Alois Schmid (ed.): Handbook of Bavarian History. Volume 4.1. Munich 2003, 109–113.