Hermann of Vicari

Hermann von Vicari as Archbishop of Freiburg

Portrait statue of Hermann von Vicaris created by Julius Seitz in the Freiburg Minster

Hermann von Vicari (born May 13, 1773 in Aulendorf ; † April 14, 1868 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a Roman Catholic bishop from 1842 to 1868 , Archbishop of Freiburg im Breisgau.

Life

Hermann von Vicari was ordained a priest in 1797 after completing his legal studies . Only in the following years did he make up for the lack of theological and philosophical training in private studies . Without any practical experience in church work, Vicari became a personal assistant to the Constance Vicar General Ignaz Heinrich von Wessenberg . When the Archdiocese of Freiburg was established in 1821, he was the only member of the Constance Curia to be appointed to the Freiburg Metropolitan Chapter and appointed Vicar General by Archbishop Bernhard Boll in 1827.

On February 24, 1832 he was appointed auxiliary bishop in Freiburg and titular bishop of Macri . The episcopal ordination donated to him on 8 April 1832 Bernhard Boll.

After the death of Bernhard Boll, the first Archbishop of Freiburg, in 1836, he was unanimously elected as his successor by the cathedral chapter , but failed due to objections from the Roman Curia and the Baden government. In his place Ignaz Anton Demeter became Archbishop of Freiburg for the next six years. When a new archbishop was elected, Hermann von Vicari received the unanimous approval of the Freiburg Cathedral Chapter again in 1842. Although there were still concerns about his person, both the provincial government and the responsible authorities in Rome accepted him, as they saw him as an interim solution due to his advanced age of almost seventy. Despite his weak constitution and modest rhetorical skills, Hermann von Vicari became a protagonist in the Badischer Kulturkampf , a dispute between church and state in the Grand Duchy of Baden, during the 26 years of his tenure . Although he was temporarily under house arrest in the Baden Kulturkampf , he remained faithful to his concern with great firmness and strength of character, to free the Catholic Church from strong sovereign influence and to bring about a lasting adherence to the requirements of Rome. In the historical assessment, Hermann von Vicari is considered to be one of the most important figures in the renewal of German Catholicism in the 19th century.

Vicari was buried in the Freiburg Minster . There, among other things, a portrait statue by the artist Julius Seitz commemorates the former Archbishop of Freiburg.

literature

• Heinrich Hansjakob : Hermann von Vicari, Archbishop of Freiburg. For its centenary celebration . Leo Woerl Publishing House, Würzburg 1873.
• ψ .:  Vicari, Hermann von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 55, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1910, pp. 641-659.
• Franz Xaver Bishop:  Vicari, Hermann von. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 17, Bautz, Herzberg 2000, ISBN 3-88309-080-8 , Sp. 1483-1485.
• Karl-Heinz Braun : Hermann von Vicari and the archbishopric elections in Baden. A contribution to his biography (= research on the history of the Upper Rhine region, vol. 35). Alber, Freiburg / Munich 1990, ISBN 3-495-49935-0 .

Web links

Commons : Hermann von Vicari  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Hermann von Vicari in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry on Hermann von Vicari on catholic-hierarchy.org
• Short biography in Konradsblatt 2002 ( Memento from October 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

predecessor	Office	successor
Ignaz Anton Demeter	Archbishop of Freiburg 1842 - 1868	Lothar von Kübel as diocesan administrator