Grand Dean

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Grand dean is an official ecclesiastical title of the former county of Glatz in Silesia . It belonged to the Archdiocese of Prague until 1972 .

History of the official title

The Kłodzko area, which was raised to a county by the Bohemian King George of Podebrady in 1459 , has belonged directly to Bohemia and ecclesiastically to the diocese and from 1344 to the archbishopric of Prague. After the county of Glatz fell to Prussia after the First Silesian War in 1742 and finally after the Peace of Hubertusburg in 1763 , the Prussian king tried to detach it from its membership of the Prague diocese. In the course of these measures, the Prussian government created the title of Grand Dean for the County of Glatz in 1810 - and without the prior consent of the Archbishop of Prague - who was also appointed by them. Despite great efforts, the Prussian government did not succeed in breaking away from the Archdiocese of Prague. In spite of this, the title and office of Grand Dean, which only exists once in the Catholic Church , remained. In 1821 the Prussian government succeeded in enforcing stronger ties to the diocese of Breslau . The respective great dean should also be an honorary canon from Wroclaw , and the Glatz priestly candidates were no longer allowed to be trained at the Prague seminary , but in Wroclaw, where they first had to pay the accommodation costs themselves. Only through the efforts of the great dean Anton Ludwig did the Prussian government agree to financial support for the prospective clergy.

In 1920 the County of Glatz was elevated to a largely independent general vicariate by the Prague Archbishop František Kordač . The office of general vicar was held by the respective grand dean, who was directly subordinate to the Prague archbishop, but not to the Prague diocesan curia. Through his function as vicar general he obtained the right to take part in the meetings of the German Bishops' Conference.

Even with the transfer of the Kłodzko Land to Poland after the Second World War in 1945, the office and the title of Grand Dean were retained. After the German population had been largely expelled in 1946 , Vicar General Prelate Franz Monse, who had also suffered the injustice of expulsion, continued to be Grand Dean for the expellees in the County of Glatz. With the pilgrimage to Telgte that he initiated , he prepared a new spiritual home for them.

The Grand Dean has not been a member of the Bishops' Conference since 1998. His area of ​​responsibility is now carried out by the visitor for priests and believers from the County of Glatz.

With the departure of the Grand Dechant Franz Jung and the merging of the visitatures Breslau and Branitz and Glatz to form the visitation for the whole of Silesia in 2012 (Visitator Joachim Giela, representative of the German Bishops' Conference), the title of Grand Dechant will no longer be reassigned.

The royal and episcopal vicars, grand deans of County Glatz

The last major dean: Franz Jung .

literature

  • Arnestuskalender (Schematismus der Grafschaft Glatz), Arnestus-Druckerei Glatz 1933
  • Franz Jung (Ed.): The grand dean of the county of Glatz. Special print. Munster 2010.
  • Alois Bartsch: The County of Glatz. Volume 5: "The corner of God in Germany". Church and ecclesiastical life in County Glatz in a millennium. Grafschafter Bote, Lüdenscheid 1968.
  • Franz Jung (Ed.): On the way through the centuries. Contributions to the church history of the County of Glatz. Self-published by the visitor for the believers from the Grafschaft Glatz, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-00-015240-7 .
  • Arno Herzig , Małgorzata Ruchniewicz : History of the Glatzer Land. DOBU-Verlag et al., Hamburg et al. 2006, ISBN 3-934632-12-2 , p. 377 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b melancholy and openness on kirchensite.de
  2. ↑ Due to the Kulturkampf an appointment at that time was not possible.