| Patriarchate of Venice Patriarchatus Venetiarum |
|
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Country | Italy |
| Territory | Veneto |
| Ecclesiastical province | Venice |
| Metropolitan | Venice |
| Statistics | |
| Area | 871 km2 (336 sq mi) |
| Population - Total - Catholics |
(as of 2007) 370 726 355 897 (96%) |
| Parishes | 128 |
| Churches | 103 |
| Information | |
| Denomination | Roman Catholic |
| Rite | Roman Rite |
| Established | 774 |
| Cathedral | Saint Mark's Basilica |
| Patron saint | Saints Mark and Theodore |
| Secular priests | 240 |
| Current leadership | |
| Pope | Benedict XVI |
| Metropolitan Archbishop | Sede vacante |
| Apostolic Administrator | Beniamino Pizziol |
| Emeritus Bishops | Marco Cé |
| Website | |
| www.patriarcatovenezia.it | |
| Source: Annuario Pontificio 2007 | |
The Patriarch of Venice (Latin: Patriarcha Venetiarum, Italian: Patriarca di Venezia) is the ordinary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice. The bishop is one of the few Patriarchs in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church (currently five Latin sees, including the Diocese of Rome itself, are accorded the title of Patriarchate, together with Lisbon, the East Indies and Jerusalem). Currently, the only advantage of this purely formal title is the bishop's place of honor in papal processions.
The diocese of Venice was created in 774 as suffragan of the Patriarchate of Grado. It was only in 1457[1] that, in consideration of the political influence of the city, its bishops were accorded the title of patriarch by the Pope.
By tradition, the Patriarch of Venice is created a cardinal at the consistory following his appointment, although the Pope is not bound by law to do so. A large number of the prelates holding this office have been elected Pope. Three of these were in the 20th century alone: Pope Pius X (1903), Pope John XXIII (1958) and Pope John Paul I (1978).
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The Venetian islands at first belonged to the diocese of Altino or the diocese of Padua, under jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Aquileia, believed to be the successor of St. Mark.
It is certain that during the Longobard invasion (568-572) many bishops of the invaded mainland escaped under protection of the Byzantine fleet in the eastern lagoons. The Archbishop himself took refuge in Grado, where he was claimed as Patriarch, during the schism of the Three Chapters. At the end of the invasion, many of the ancient diocese of the mainland were restored by the Lombards, while the Exiles supported the new sees in the lagoons. Two patriarchs emerged from the war and from the schism (at least solved in 698): Patriarchate of Old-Aquileia on the mainland and Patriarchate of Grado.
Between the exiled bishops during the invasion there was Bishop Tricidius of Padua, that took refuge on the island of Metamaucus. When Tricidius returned to Padua there still remained a bisphoric see at Metamaucus for exiles and the Venetian islands remained under his jurisdiction until 774. In that year, with the consent of pope Adrian I and the Patriarch of Grado John IV, an episcopal see was erected on the island of Olivolo (afterwards called Castello) with jurisdiction over Gemini, Rialto, Luprio and Dorsoduro. The first bishop, Obelerius, was invested and enthroned by the doge of Venice Maurice Galbaio and ordained by the Patriarch. After Obelerius' death, the doge named Christopher from Damiata in 798, a member of the Greek party (that is, the partisans of the Eastern Emperor). Patriarch John, a member of the Frankish party (the partisans of Charlemagne) refused to consecrate him, due to his extreme youth. A subsequent confrontation led to the murder of Patriarch John. John was succeeded by his nephew Fortunato from Trieste, who placed himself under the protection of the Frank-Lombard Kingdom and to a confused period, during which the chair of Olivolo was a long struggle. The same Dutchy was invaded by the Franks, that besieged the (political) Metamaucus and were defeated and expelled only in 810.
The victorious Greek party, led by the new ducal family of Parteciaci, in 812 moved the ducal see from Metamaucus to the more secure Rialto, at the center of the lagoon. A new city was created by the merger of the central islands, including Olivolo: that city was Venice.
Finally, after the death of Patriarch Fortunato in 825, Orso, son of the doge John I Pateciacus, became bishop of the city. Under him, the relics of the Evangelist St. Mark were transferred from the Muslim dominated Alexandria of Egypt and brought to Venice. Two Venetian merchants were said to have wrapped the relics in pork so as to avoid detection by the Muslim customs officials. Meanwhile, Venice (as well as Aquileia and Grado) had had a tradition that St. Mark himself had preached the Gospel in the lagoon area. The possession of the relics of the saint lent greater weight to the tradition and the Venetian state capitalized on it making the symbol of St. Mark, the winged lion, its very own. The Basilica of St. Mark was until the 19th century the private chapel of the Doge. The Basilica became autonomous from the diocese, with churches under its jurisdiction and a special officer, the Primicerius of St. Mark to represent the bisphoric power of the Doge. Meanwhile the bishop's cathedral remained St. Peter's in Castello.
In 1074 Bishop Henry, from the noble family of Contarini, was the first to bear the title of Bishop of Castello, indicating the complete merger of the island of Olivolo with Venice. That is, Olivolo had by then become a simple neighborhood of Venice. The growth of Venice was balanced by the crisis of the other coastal cities of the Duchy. Patriarchs of Grado began to reside in Venice more and more until in 1105 they definitely transferred to the city, with their own church at St. Silvestrus. For the next three centuries, three bishops resided in Venice: the Patriarch of Grado, the Primicerius of St. Mark and the Bishop of Castello, each one with his own jurisdiction.
The city gathered relics, especially from the East, and especially after the conquest of Constantinople. After 1204, the icon of the Madonna called Nicopoeia, which is still in St. Mark's, arrived.
In 1225 Marco II Michel finally secured the exemption of the clergy from lay jurisdiction, except in cases involving real property. Jacopo Albertini (1311) became attached to the schism of Antipope Nicholas V and Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV the Bavarian, whom he crowned with the Lombard Iron Crown in 1327, and was therefore deposed. Under Nicolo' Morosini (1336) the dispute between the clergy and republican government concerning the mortuary tithes was settled, though it began afresh under Paolo Foscari in 1367, only to end in 1376.
During the Schism of the West, Venice adhered to the Roman obedience.
In 1451, upon the death of Domenico Michel, Patriarch of Grado, Pope Nicholas V suppressed the patriarchate and the Bishopric of Castello, incorporating them both in the new Patriarchate of Venice by the Papal Bull "Regis aeterni." Thus Venice succeeded to the whole metropolitan jurisdiction of Grado's eccelsiastical province, including the sees of Dalmatia.
In 1466 the territory of the Patriarchate was expanded by merging the suppressed Diocese of Equilio (nowadays Jesolo).
The election of the patriarch belonged to the Senate of Venice, and this practice sometimes led to differences between the republic and the Holy See. Likewise, parishioners elected their parish priests, by the right of patronage. Girolamo Quirini, O.P. (1519–54), had many disputes with the clergy, the Government, and the Holy See. To avoid these disputes, the Senate decreed that in future only senators should be eligible. Those elected after this were frequently laymen. Giovanni Trevisano, O.S.B. (1560), introduced the Tridentine reforms, founding the seminary, holding synods and collecting the regulations made by his predecessors (Constitutiones et privilegia patriarchatus et cleri Venetiarum). In 1581 the visita Apostolica was sent to Venice; a libellus exhortatorius was published, in which the visita highly praised the clergy of Venice.
In 1751 the Pope abolished the Patriarchate of Aquileia by creating two new Archbishops in Udine and Gorizia. With this act the Patriarchate of Venice became sole heir to the throne of St. Mark in northeastern Italy.
After 1797 and the fall of the Republic of Venice under the rule of Napoleon, the bisphoric rule of the Doge on the Basilica and St. Mark's relics was lacking. Then in 1807, by favor of the Viceroy of Italy, the Neapolitan Nicola Gambroni was promoted to the patriarchate and of his own authority transferred the patriarchal seat to the Basilica of St. Mark, uniting the two chapters. He also reduced the number of parish churches from seventy to thirty. The work of enlarging the choir of the basilica brought to light the relics of St. Mark (1808). In 1811 Napoleon I intruded into the See of Venice Stefano Bonsignore, Bishop of Faenza, but in 1814 that prelate returned to his own see.
In 1819 the Diocese of Torcello and Diocese of Caorle were merged in the Patriarchate of Venice, while the dioceses of the Venetian territory were placed under its metropolitan jurisdiction. Cardinal Giuseppe Sarto, afterwards Pius X, succeeded in 1893; he was refused recognition by the Italian Government, which claimed the right of nomination formerly employed by the Habsburg Emperor of Austria and in earlier times by the Venetian Senate, but after eleven months this pretension was abandoned.
An example of this occurs in his analysis of the writings of the patriarch of Venice, Giovanni Tiepolo (d. 1631), which deal with the veneration of the ... [2]