Archdiocese of Bar
| Archdiocese of Bar | |
| Basic data | |
|---|---|
| Country | Montenegro |
| Ecclesiastical province | Immediate |
| Diocesan bishop | Rrok Gjonlleshaj |
| Emeritus diocesan bishop | Zef Gashi SDS |
| surface | 13,198 km² |
| Parishes | 19 (December 31, 2011 / AP2013 ) |
| Residents | 631,000 (December 31, 2011 / AP2013 ) |
| Catholics | 11,227 ( 12/31/2011 / AP2013 ) |
| proportion of | 1.8% |
| Diocesan priest | 7 (December 31, 2011 / AP2013 ) |
| Religious priest | 7 (December 31, 2011 / AP2013 ) |
| Catholics per priest | 802 |
| Friars | 7 (December 31, 2011 / AP2013 ) |
| Religious sisters | 30 (December 31, 2011 / AP2013 ) |
| rite | Roman rite |
| cathedral | Cathedral of Saint Peter |
| Co-cathedral | Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception |
| address | Nadbiskupski Ordinarijat Popovici 98 85000 Bar, Crna Gora |
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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bar ( Latin : Archidioecesis Antibarensis ), based in the Montenegrin port city of Bar , was founded as a diocese in the 9th century and elevated to an archbishopric in 1034. It does not belong to any ecclesiastical province and is directly subordinate to the Holy See . With a size of 13,138 km², the archdiocese covers almost the entire country, apart from the area of the Bay of Kotor , which has its own bishop in Kotor ( Diocese of Kotor ).
The Roman Catholics make up only 2.2 percent of the population living in the area of the archbishopric. The sharp decline in the number of believers can be traced back to the particularly strong trend towards de-Christianization in the former communist countries as well as a strong economic emigration. This continues to this day, as unemployment is still very high in Montenegro. Over 90 percent of the diocesans live either in the coastal region, next to Bar, especially in the cities of Budva and Ulcinj , or in the Malesija mountains near Tuzi . A little more than half of the faithful in the archdiocese are Albanian-speaking .
history
The Christianity was already in the 3rd or 4th century entrance to the coastal area of present-day Montenegro, when this area was a Roman province Praevallis belonged. The division of the Roman Empire in 395 was significant for Christianity in the region, as the interface between eastern and western Christianity was formed here, which has decisively shaped the history of the Archdiocese of Bar.
Until the 12th century, Dioclea, the region's medieval name, belonged to the Byzantine Empire . The dioceses on the eastern Adriatic coast were subject to the Holy See in Rome. In addition to the Bar diocese founded in the 9th century, there were also bishops in Budva, Ulcinj, Kotor and Lezha . The Benedictine order established a number of monasteries in the region in the 10th and 11th centuries, which were important for the close spiritual and cultural ties to Italy.
In 1034 Bar was raised to the status of archdiocese. In addition to the above-mentioned dioceses, Shkodra , Pult and Sapa were also subordinate to him as suffragans. In 1089, under the reign of Konstantin Bodin , the Archdiocese of Bar was finally confirmed as an archbishopric. Before that, it had to defend itself from being incorporated by the Archdiocese of Dubrovnik . Since Konstantin Bodin ruled as the Serbian king, the Archbishop of Bar also became the Primate of Serbia , a title held by the Archbishops of Bar until recent history. According to the papal bull, the Archdiocese of Bar was responsible for all land between the Sava , Danube , Drin and Bojana rivers .
After the collapse of Byzantine power on the Adriatic, the seat of the archbishop, Bar, was ruled alternately by the kings of Serbia and Hungary or by the Republic of Venice after a short independence . During the time of Tsar Stefan Dušan , the influence of Orthodoxy in the core area of the archdiocese grew. The Serbian ruler founded several monasteries on the Adriatic coast and had Orthodox churches built to support his claim to rule. In the second half of the 14th century, the Balšić dynasty established an independent principality of Zeta. The Balšić converted from the Orthodox to the Roman Catholic denomination and they pledged to Pope Urban V to respect and protect the rights and possessions of the Archbishop of Bar and the Bishop of Kotor.
Around 1450 the city of Bar came back under the control of the Roman Catholic Venice, while the hinterland was ruled by the Orthodox princely family Crnojević , who promoted their faith there more. For a few decades, the bar and its church were still under the protection of the Venetians, until the city was conquered by the Turks for the first time in 1538 and after a second conquest in 1571 finally became part of the Ottoman Empire . The then Archbishop John VIII came into Turkish captivity and was murdered after the sea battle of Lepanto . About half of the Roman Catholic population left Bar at that time, while some of those who stayed behind converted to Islam in the decades that followed. St. George's Cathedral has been converted into a mosque.
The Archdiocese of Bar was preserved under Turkish rule. It formed an important focal point for the preservation of Catholicism, especially among the Albanians. The archbishops provided both the Holy See and the Venetians with information about the ecclesiastical and political situation of Christians in Vilayet Shkodra. They often gained their knowledge on secret trips through their district, because the Ottomans did not allow the exercise of the episcopate outside the city of Bar and they did not allow the Roman Catholic Church to do any missionary work. The Archbishops of Bar then tried repeatedly to persuade the Venetians to recapture the city. Such an attempt ended in 1717 without success.
In 1878 Bar and much of the diocese area became part of Montenegro. The archdiocese now belonged to a country where Orthodoxy was the state religion. The Holy See took the new political realities into account by converting Bar into an immediates archdiocese in 1886 and subordinating its remaining suffragans Lezha, Pult and Sappa (Budva and Ulcinj had perished in the 16th century) to the Archdiocese of Shkodra, which was formed in 1867. All of these dioceses were located in Albania, which was then still Ottoman. Bar was only responsible for the Roman Catholics in the territory of Montenegro, who of course were largely Albanian-speaking. Around 6,800 Roman Catholics lived in Montenegro at the beginning of the 20th century. Their rights were regulated by the Concordat concluded in 1886 between the Holy See and the Principality . The archbishop received a state pension and the government financed one student a year to study theology in Rome. At the request of Prince Nikolas , Pope Leo XIII awarded. the archbishopric the right to use both the Latin and the Old Slavonic language for the celebration of the Roman liturgy, as was traditionally the custom in some Dalmatian dioceses as early as the Middle Ages. Cf. Old Slavonic rite
With the end of Montenegrin independence, the Concordat lapsed. Concordat negotiations with Yugoslavia failed in the 1930s.
After the Second World War, the Archdiocese of Bar had a special meaning for the Albanian Catholics. Aside from the jurisdiction in Kosovo, Bar was the only region where they could freely practice their faith, while in Albania Roman Catholic life had been almost completely destroyed by the ban on religion. After the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council , which introduced the mother tongue for worship, the required liturgical books in Albanian could only be compiled by priests of the Archdiocese of Bar and the Administratur Prizren. The Albanian missal , which was created in Bar, is still used today with only a few modifications in all Albanian-speaking dioceses.
The former Archbishop of Tirana, Rrok Mirdita , came from the Archdiocese of Bar.
See also
literature
- Daniele Farlati : Illyricum Sacrum, Vol. VII: Ecclesia Diocletana, Antibarensis, Dyrrhachiensis, et Sirmiensis, pp. 190 ff.
- Nikčević, Vojislav (ed.): Arhiepiskopija barska. (= Monumenta Montenegrina, 4.1). Podgorica 2001. ISBN 86-305-0330-0
- Nikčević, Vojislav (ed.): Crkve podložnice Barske arhiepiskopije. (= Monumenta Montenegrina, 5.1). 2001. Podgorica ISBN 86-305-0330-0
- Opštinski Arhiv Bar (ed.): Devet Vijekova Barske Nadbiskupije (1089–1989). Bar 1989.
- Nadbiskupski Ordinarijat Bar (Ed.): S Barskom nadbiskupijom kroz vjekove. Bar 1995
- Peter Bartl: A bishop visits his diocese. Andreas Zmajević in Antivari, 1671. In: Südosteuropa. Of premodern diversity and national standardization. Festschrift for Edgar Hösch , ed. by Konrad Clewing (= Southeast European works. 127). Munich 2005. pp. 195-212.
- Serbo Rastoder: Konkordat izmedju Crne Gore i Vatikana 1886. godine s posebnim osvrtom na polozaj albanaca katolika. In: Nikë Ukgjini, Willy Kamsi & Romeo Gurakuqi (eds.): Krishterimi ndër Shqiptarë. Simpozium ndërkombëtar, Tiranë, 16-19 nëntor 1999. Shkodra 2000, pp. 250-267. ISBN 99927-690-0-9
- Jovović, Ivan: Iz prošlosti Dukljansko-barske nadbiskupije. Bar 2004.
Web links
- Entry for Archdiocese of Bar on catholic-hierarchy.org
- Article Antivari in New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia (1911 )
