Archbishopric of Warmia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Archbishopric of Warmia (Polish: Archidiecezja warmińska; German: Erzbistum Ermland (help·info); Latin: Archidioecesis Varmiensis) is an archbishopric in northeastern Poland.
It was originally a bishopric created by William of Modena in 1243 in the territory of Prussia after its conquest by the Teutonic Knights. Under Emperor Charles IV it became a Prince-Bishopric. The bishopric was raised to an archbishopric in 1992.
Contents |
[edit] History
Christian of Oliva was the first bishop of Prussia before the Bishopric of Prussia was divided.
[edit] Territory of the Teutonic Order
Along with Culmland, Pomesania, and Sambia, Warmia was one of four dioceses created in 1243 by the papal legate William of Modena. All four dioceses came under the rule of the appointed Archbishop of Prussia Albert Suerbeer who came from Cologne and was the former Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland. He choose Riga as his residence in 1251, which was confirmed by Pope Alexander IV in 1255. Several bishops at that time were priests of the Teutonic Order. Heinrich of Strateich, the first elected Bishop of Warmia, was unable to claim his office, but in 1251 Anselm of Meissen entered the see of Warmia. The bishop ruled one-third of the bishopric as a secular ruler. This was confirmed by the Golden Bull of 1356. The chapter had the right to elect independently the bishop and resided at Braunsberg (Braniewo) until it moved to Frauenburg (Frombork) in 1280 after attacks by heathen Old Prussians.
Although the Bishops of Warmia defended their privileges and tried to put down all attempts to cut the prerogatives and the autonomy the bishopric enjoyed, Polish and German historians disagree whether the bishopric was autonomous or simply controlled by the Teutonic Knights. After the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 both Sambian and Warmian bishops paid homage to King Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland, which resulted in the Teutonic Knights invading their holdings. When it became clear that the Teutonic Order would surrender in the Thirteen Years' War, Bishop Paul of Lengendorf (1458-1467) joined the Prussian Confederation.
[edit] Crown of Poland
The Peace of Toruń in 1466 removed the bishopric from the control of the Teutonic Knights and placed it under the sovereignty of the King of Poland. The bishops insisted on large privileges and ruled the territory as de-facto prince-bishops although the Polish king did not share this point of view. This led to conflict when the Polish king claimed the right to name the bishops, as he did in the Kingdom of Poland. The chapter did not accept this and elected Nicolaus von Tüngen as bishop, which led to the War of the Priests (Warmia Stift Feud, 1467-1479) between King Casimir IV Jagiellon and Nikolaus von Tüngen (1467-89) who was supported by the Teutonic Order and King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.
The Polish king accepted Tüngen as prince-bishop in the First Treaty of Piotrków Trybunalski, while Tüngen inversely accepted the Polish king's suzerainty and obliged the chapter to elect only candidates approved of by the Polish king. However, when Tüngen died in 1489, the chapter elected Lucas Watzenrode as bishop and Pope Innocent VIII supported Watzenrode against the wishes of King Casimir IV Jagiellon (1447–1492) who preferred his son Frederic. This problem finally led to the exemption of the bishopric in 1512 by Pope Julius II. In the Second Treaty of Piotrków Trybunalski (December 7, 1512) Warmia conceded to King Alexander Jagiellon the right to propose four candidates to the chapter for the election.
The Bishopric of Warmia lost two-thirds of its parishes in 1525 when the Order's Grand Master Albert of Prussia secularized the Order's remaining Prussian territories to create the Duchy of Prussia during the Protestant Reformation.
After the Council of Trent the later cardinal Stanislaus Hosius (1551-79) held a diocesan synode (1565) and the same year the Jesuits came to Braunsberg. The Congregation of St. Catherine, founded at Braunsberg by Regina Protmann, engaged in education, especially schooling for girls.
Several times in the 17th and early 18th centuries Warmia was exposed to attacks by Sweden.
By the late 18th century, the prince-bishop was an ex officio Senator of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
[edit] As part of East Prussia
As a result of the First Partition of Poland in 1772, Warmia was incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia's province of East Prussia. The bishopric ceased to be a governmental unit, and King Frederick II confiscated its property. The last prince-bishop, the noted Polish author Ignacy Krasicki, though deprived of temporal authority, retained influence at the Prussian court before his reappointment as Archbishop of Gniezno in 1795.
Thereafter, the Bishops of Warmia were nominated by the Lutheran Prussian government and Catholic institutions were suppressed. Most bishops appointed after the Partitions of Poland were nationalist Germans who supported the Germanisation policy of the time.
By the bull De salute animum (July 16, 1820) the Catholic church in Prussia was reorganised. The Diocese of Warmia included from then also the territories taken during Reformation, the former Diocese of Samland (Sambia) and a part of the Diocese of Pomesania. Later Marienwerder (Kwidzyn) was attached as well.
In 1901, the total population in the area of the diocese was about 2,000,000, but only 327,567 were Catholics.
[edit] World War II and after
Bishop Maximilian Kaller was forced to leave his office by the Nazi Schutzstaffel in February 1945 during World War II, as the Soviet Red Army advanced into Nazi Germany. After the Second World War, the Potsdam Agreement made the southern portion of the diocese a part of Poland, while the northern part found itself in the Soviet Union as part of the Kaliningrad Oblast; the German population was subject to expulsion.
Kaller returned to the region to resume his office as bishop, but by then a Polish administration and population had moved in and was opposed to a German bishop after the German wartime atrocities. Cardinal August Hlond prevented Kaller from resuming his duties, and Kaller went to what would become West Germany. In 1946 he received "Special Authority as Bishop for the Deported Germans" from Pope Pius XII.
The office of Bishop of Warmia, traditionally at the cathedral of Frauenburg (Frombork), was left vacant until the appointment of Józef Drzazga in 1972, who relocated the office to Olsztyn.
On March 25, 1992, the Bishopric of Warmia was raised to an archbishopric, with the bishoprics of Elbląg and Ełk belonging also to the 12,000 km² area and its 703,000 Catholics, 33 deans, 253 church districts, 446 diocese priests, 117 order priests, and 231 order nuns.
The current archbishop is Edmund Michał Piszcz, supported by a bishop.
