Jean-Évangéliste Zaepffel
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Jean-Évangéliste Zaepffel (also Gäpfel) (born December 3, 1735 in Dambach-la-Ville , † October 17, 1808 in Liège ) was a French cleric. He was the first bishop of the Liège diocese after the French Revolution .
Live and act
Jean-Évangéliste Zaepffel came from an Alsatian noble family and was ordained a priest for the diocese of Strasbourg in 1762 . He was first canon at Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune in Strasbourg . In 1763 he was elected as a canon in the chapter of the Église Notre-Dame-de-la-Nativité in Saverne , where he stayed for two years. He was then a canon at Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux in Strasbourg.
Shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution, he was proposed as Bishop of Strasbourg, because of the turmoil in the revolution he emigrated to Sasbach in Baden. The 1801 Concordat between France and the Holy See allowed him to return to France.
Napoleon Bonaparte , the first consul of the French Republic, appointed Düpfel bishop of Liège on April 29, 1802. After the papal confirmation, Armand de Roquelaure , Archbishop of Mechelen , donated him episcopal ordination on June 7, 1802 in the Chapelle des Carmes in St-Sulpice in Paris . Co- consecrators were the Bishop of Bayeux , Charles Brault , and the Bishop of Amiens , Jean-Chrysostome de Villaret .
On August 29, 1802, the citizens of Liège received him with a pageant. In order to be able to guarantee the smooth functioning of the large diocese, he retained the Vicar General Count de Rougrave, who had held this office since Prince-Bishop Franz Karl von Velbrück and under Zaepffel's predecessor, Prince-Bishop Franciscus-Antonius de Méan .
Shortly after taking office, Zaepffel visited the most important cities of the diocese, Maastricht , Tongeren and Huy , as well as several monasteries, on a pastoral visit lasting several weeks . Since the Liège Lambertus Cathedral was destroyed in the turmoil of the revolution, he raised the collegiate church of Saint Paul to the new cathedral. During his tenure, numerous dependent churches were elevated to independent parishes. In 1807, Gäpffel was able to reopen the seminary that was closed in 1797. In the course of the summer of 1808 his health deteriorated so much that he could only perform his office to a limited extent. Jean-Évangéliste Zaepffel died on October 17, 1808, still in the old Prince-Bishop's Palace.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ From 1681 to 1898 the church was divided by a wall into a Lutheran nave and a Catholic choir; the Catholic chapter existed as an institution until the French Revolution ( saintpierrelejeune.org ).
- ↑ Alfred Minke: Un prélat concord Montataire dans les départements Réunis: Mgr Zaepffel, évêque de Liège , Presses Universitaires de Louvain, 1985
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Franciscus-Antonius de Méan |
Bishop of Liège 1802–1808 |
Cornelis Richard Anton van Bommel |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Zaepffel, Jean-Évangéliste |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French clergyman and bishop of Liège |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 3, 1735 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dambach-la-Ville |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 17, 1808 |
| Place of death | Liege |