Heinrich I. (Gurk)

Heinrich († October 3, 1174 ), as Heinrich I, was bishop of the diocese of Gurk , which was under the metropolitan bishopric of the prince-archbishopric of Salzburg . Its territory today includes the federal state of Carinthia .

Heinrich was abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St. Peter in Salzburg and was elected Bishop of Gurk by Archbishop Konrad II in 1167 . On March 4, 1168 it was consecrated by the archbishop in Friesach . Nothing is known about its origin.

The reign of Bishop Heinrich coincided with the schism between Pope and Emperor. Patriarch Ulrich von Aquileja tried to pull the Archbishop of Salzburg into the anti-imperial alliance. However, in agreement with the Gurk bishop, he sent a message to the emperor, who at that time was about to reconcile with Pope Alexander III. was inclined. Archbishop Konrad died in 1168 and his successor Adalbert von Böhmen was also a supporter of the Pope. In 1169 Heinrich was co-consecrator of Archbishop Adalbert.

In 1170, Emperor Friedrich stayed in Friesach and also met with Bishop Heinrich to pull him over to the imperial side. For this purpose, he granted the Gurk diocese an important deed of donation for mines that were previously reserved for the Salzburg archdiocese. Since the Archbishop of Salzburg had given up his regalia to the Kaiser in 1169, the Kaiser was formally entitled to do so. This brief imperial direct status of Gurk was ended again with the end of the schism under Heinrich's successor.

In 1172 the Pope appointed Bishop Heinrich as Vicar General of Salzburg. In 1176 he ordered all prelates of the Salzburg archbishopric to obey Archbishop Adalbert and to avoid the emperor's banned messengers.

Heinrich spent most of the summer on the Flattnitz and had the local church dedicated to John the Baptist built. Bishop Heinrich also continued to build on the Gurk Cathedral and saw the completion of the crypt with its 100 columns, where he had the remains of Hemma von Gurk transferred in 1174 .

At the Regensburg Court Congress in 1174, Bishop Richer von Brixen, in agreement with the Gurk bishop Heinrich Adalbert, declared deposed and appointed provost Heinrich I of the Berchtesgaden monastery as the new archbishop. Archbishop Adalbert then banned the two bishops. Shortly after his banishment, Bishop Heinrich died on October 3, 1174. The regulars of the monastery of St. Peter could not celebrate a funeral mass for their dead brother and turned to the archbishop with the request to forgive the deceased and grant him absolution.

literature

• Jakob Obersteiner: The bishops of Gurk. 1072–1822 (= From Research and Art. 5, ISSN  0067-0642 ). Verlag des Geschichtsverein für Kärnten, Klagenfurt 1969, pp. 45–53.