Valentin Wiery

Valentin Wiery, lithograph by August Prinzhofer , 1859

Valentin Wiery (born February 12, 1813 in St. Marein near Wolfsberg , † December 29, 1880 in Klagenfurt ) was Bishop of Gurk .

Life

Valentin Wiery was born in Lavanttal as the son of a master mason and was adopted by an uncle on his father's side, who however died after three years. The boy then came to a maternal uncle in Klagenfurt and attended school there. Wiery then entered the Klagenfurt seminary and learned the Slovene language . On August 24, 1835, he was ordained a priest by the Lavanter Bishop Ignaz Zimmermann . He spent the following three years at the World Priests Institute St. Augustin in Vienna. In 1838 he received his doctorate in theology , then became a chaplain in St. Marein near Cilli and, after four months, was called to the Gurk seminary in Klagenfurt as a spiritual director. Thanks to his language skills, he was also able to teach Slovenian theologians in their mother tongue. In 1844 he became consistorial councilor of the diocese of Lavant and became a member of the cathedral chapter that same year . In 1849 he took part as a specialist theologian in the large assembly of bishops in Vienna. In 1851 the Archbishop of Salzburg appointed him to his cathedral chapter and appointed him director of the Salzburg seminary.

Crypt of the bishops Wiery, Hefter and Köstner

In 1858 he was appointed Bishop of Gurk, his confirmation was on November 20, 1858, and on December 8, 1858 he was enthroned in Klagenfurt Cathedral . In the first year of his reign there was an event that was historically significant for Carinthia: the diocese of Lavant, to which his place of birth belonged, was merged with the diocese of Gurk on June 1, 1859, and the national borders of Carinthia now coincided with the diocesan borders . The bishopric of St. Andrä in Lavanttal moved to Marburg an der Drau ( Maribor ).

In 1851 the Slovene St. Hermagoras Association was founded in Klagenfurt and converted into an ecclesiastical brotherhood by Bishop Wiery. In 1869, Bishop Wiery took part in the 1st Vatican Council in Rome. Under Bishop Wiery a new process for the canonization of Hemma von Gurk was initiated, but this was not ended during his reign. With the new constitution of 1861, the bishop became a member of the manor house and the Carinthian parliament.

In November 1879 he took part in the Bishops' Conference in Vienna. Upon his return, a nasty ulcer appeared on his left foot. At the celebration of Christmas in the Klagenfurt Cathedral, he received the sacraments and died on December 29, after the Pope's blessing had arrived the day before. Bishop Wiery was buried at his own request in the crypt under the Franz Xaver Chapel of Klagenfurt Cathedral and is thus the first Gurk bishop to find his final resting place in Klagenfurt Cathedral.

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Wiery, Valentin . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 56th part. Imperial-Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1888, p. 33 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Jakob Obersteiner: The bishops of Gurk. 1824–1979 (= From Research and Art. 22, ISSN  0067-0642 ). Publishing house of the History Association for Carinthia, Klagenfurt 1980.