Ferdinand Christoph von Waldburg-Zeil

Bishop Ferdinand Christoph von Waldburg-Zeil

Ferdinand Christoph Reichserbtruchsess Count von Waldburg Zeil (born February 6, 1719 in Salzburg ; † April 9, 1786 there ) was Prince-Bishop of Chiemsee from 1773–1786 . He was considered one of the most important church politicians of his time.

family

Ferdinand Christoph was Reichserbtruchsess , Freiherr auf Waldburg and Herr zu Wurzach , Marstetten, Altmannshofen , Wolfegg and Waldsee . He came from the Waldburg-Zeil line of the Swabian noble family Waldburg . His parents were Johann Jakob von Waldburg-Zeil, who was in the Salzburg service, and Maria Elisabeth Countess von Kuenburg .

Life

Ferdinand Christoph was registered as a rudimentist in Salzburg in 1729 . From 1736 he studied at the Collegium Clementinum in Rome, where in 1738 he defended the theses of his thesis on the achievement of an academic degree in a public disputation before 25 prelates. In the same year he gave a to Pope Clement XII in the papal chapel in front of the College of Cardinals . directed Latin address. In 1745 he became a member of the Salzburg cathedral chapter and in 1746 canon in Augsburg . He is also said to have received a canonical in Halberstadt .

In 1750, Archbishop Andreas Jakob von Dietrichstein sent him to negotiate salt and coin issues with the Munich court . He subsequently negotiated these questions several times in Munich. Presumably because of his diplomatic skills, he was appointed to the Privy Council in 1753 and elected dean by the Salzburg Cathedral Chapter . In 1755 Archbishop Schrattenbach gave him far-reaching powers that allowed him to inspect the entire financial administration. In 1757 he took part in the Bavarian district council in Mühldorf . There was a falling out with the archbishop in 1758 when Waldburg-Zeil and the cathedral chapter accused him of economic failures. In 1766 Waldburg-Zeil negotiated for Salzburg in the border disputes in the Zillertal and in 1768 he accepted the imperial fiefs for Archbishop Schrattenbach in Vienna . At the Salzburg Congress of Bavarian Bishops, which was opened in 1770, he was responsible for the management and the subsequent negotiations at the Munich court from 1772–1777. The Bavarian bishops countered the territorialistic church policy of spa Bavaria with a reform program based on Febronianism .

After the death of the Chiemsee prince-bishop Franz Karl Eusebius von Waldburg-Friedberg and Trauchburg , Archbishop Hieronymus von Colloredo appointed Ferdinand Christoph von Waldburg-Zeil as his successor on October 18, 1772. After confirmation on February 14, 1773, he was ordained bishop on January 9, 1774 and the inauguration did not take place until October 9, 1774. In the same year he signed a recess of the Bavarian episcopate , with which the spiritual and secular power of the abbot and the abbot. Abbess elections were established. As Bishop of Chiemsee, he remained a member of the Salzburg Cathedral Chapter, but had to renounce the office of Dean.

When he was appointed Bishop of Chiemsee, Archbishop Colloredo's wish for reconciliation was probably in the foreground, as Waldburg-Zeil was already considered a promising candidate for the Salzburg Archbishopric after the death of Archbishop Schrattenbach in 1771. His election, supported by Kurbayern, could not be enforced because the Austrian electoral ambassadors decided on the then Gurk Prince-Bishop Colloredo. Waldburg-Zeil's relationship with Archbishop Colloredo was strained by these events. In 1779 Waldburg-Zeil protested together with the Salzburg Cathedral Chapter against Colloredo's tax policy. The dispute was ended in 1786 by the Reichshofrat with a settlement . However, Waldburg-Zeil was supported by Archbishop Colloredo when the diocesan borders were to be adapted to the state borders as part of the Josephine reforms . This measure, through which the Diocese of Chiemsee would have lost the southern part of its district located in Tyrol , could be averted. In the course of the reforms, however, the Dominican monastery in Kitzbühel was abolished.

As a supporter of the Enlightenment , Ferdinand Christoph von Waldburg-Zeil was interested in the intellectual currents of his time. He corresponded with members of the Electoral Houses of Bavaria and Saxony and numerous other high-ranking personalities. In Salzburg he supported Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and arranged for the cathedral chapter archive to be organized. Presumably during his stay in Rome he became a member of the local academy "Dei Pastori Arcadi". Together with his brother Franz Anton he took part in the founding of the Electoral Academy in Munich, of which he could not become a member for political reasons.

In Salzburg he was a member of the Masonic Lodge Zur Fürsicht and in 1777 he became head of the Munich Lodge Zur Cautiousness .

Since 1756 he had the high and low hunting justice in a district near Salzburg, in which he owned the hunting lodge "Mon repos".

In 1785 Ferdinand Christoph von Waldburg-Zeil ceded his Augsburg canonical for 10,000 florins to Johann Baptist Graf von Sternberg. He died a year later at the age of 67. He left behind a comprehensive scientific library with over 5,000 volumes. His body was buried in the Gabriel Chapel in Salzburg and in 1967 transferred to the priestly crypt in the Sebastian cemetery.

literature

• Erwin Naimer: Waldburg-Zeil, Ferdinand Christoph Reichserbtruchseß Count von (1719–1786) . In: Erwin Gatz : The Bishops of the Holy Roman Empire 1648−1803 , ISBN 3-428-06763-0 , pp. 545-546.

Web links

Commons : Ferdinand Christoph von Waldburg-Zeil  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry about Ferdinand Christoph von Waldburg-Zeil on catholic-hierarchy.org (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The quoted source does not allow a more precise determination of the academic degree.
2. ^ Probably with the diocese of Brixen .
3. ↑ Eugen Lennhoff, Oskar Posner, Dieter A. Binder: Internationales Freemaurer Lexikon . 1980. Reprint from 1932, Amalthena Verlag, ISBN 978-3-7766-2478-6 , Lemma Zeil, Ferdinand Christoph, Graf zu Waldburg

predecessor	Office	successor
Franz Karl Eusebius of Waldburg-Friedberg and Trauchburg	Bishop of Chiemsee 1772–1786	Franz Xaver von Breuner