Breslau [Wrocław] (Vratislavia), Archdiocese of

BRESLAU [WROCŁAW] (Vratislavia), Archdiocese of. - Now in Poland. Capital of Silesia and metropolitan see.

I. FORMATION (1000-1335)

The diocese of B. was founded around the year 1000, simultaneously with Kraków and Kolberg, as a suffragan of Gniezno (Gnesen), but it disappeared again during the pagan reaction, after the death of the Polish sovereign Bolesław Chrobry; thus there is a gap between the first bishop John (mentioned only by Dietmar of Merseburg) and the second, Jerome (1046-62). Even for the following bishops, down to the end of the 12th century, the documents are very scarce. Walter (1149-69), first provost of Malonne, diocese of Liège, obtained from Pope Adrian IV in the year 1155 the first document of patronage, from which one can learn the extent and the provisions or prebends of the diocese. The Cathedral Chapter was probably constituted by Premonstratensian canons. The number of parishes, despite the ecclesiastical foundations of the Polish magnate Peter Wlast, remained small: the diocese was a mission diocese.

A change took place only when, at the end of the 12th century, the Polish dukes of Silesia, beginning with Henry I, husband of St. Hedwig (d. 1243), called German colonists into the country; in their villages and towns new churches were built, so that from the year 1200 to 1350 the number of authentically mentioned churches rose from 24 to 771. At the same time the organization of the diocese was completed: to the already existing archdeaconry of B. were added in 1227 the archdeaconries of Oppeln and Glogau, in 1261 Liegnitz; from 1219 the existence of archpriests can be proven.

The great bishops of the 13th century, Lawrence (1207-32), Thomas (1232-68) and his nephew Thomas II (1270-92), all Poles, promoted German colonization also in their own territories, Ottmachau-Neisse.

In 1244 the construction of the new cathedral was begun, which still exists today. In 1288 a long dispute was composed with Duke Henry IV regarding the right of tithe.

The rich monasteries of the Cistercians such as Leubus, Camenz and Trebnitz, the foundations of St. Hedwig, Heinrichau, Grüssau, Rauden and Himmelwitz; of the Augustinian Canons of St. Mary at B., Sagan, the abbey of the Premonstratensians of St. Vincent at B. developed into centers of intense religious life. Under the first German bishop, Henry von Würben (1302-19) this development appears completed.

II. UNDER THE CROWN OF BOHEMIA (1335-1742)

The further fate of the diocese was decided by the fact that Silesia, by the Treaty of Trenčín in 1335, became an immediate dependency of the crown of Bohemia, in 1536 passed to the House of Habsburg and remained a hereditary possession of this house, until in 1742 it was ceded to Prussia. Bishop Nanker (1326-42) strove, but in vain, to stem the Bohemian influence. Under Preczlaw von Pogarell (1341-1376) Bohemian culture, which emanated from the Prague court of Emperor Charles IV, radiated also into Silesia. The diocese reached its first flowering and was distinguished with the honorary title of episcopatus aureus; the territory of the bishopric was also extended with the acquisition of the duchy of Grottkau.

The invasions of the Hussites under Bishop Conrad von Ols (1417-47), and the disputes around the Council of Basel, later the struggle between the commercially powerful city of B. and George of Poděbrady of Bohemia naturally damaged ecclesiastical life as well. But under Rudolf of Rüdesheim (1468-82), who had previously resided at B. as papal legate, then under John Roth (1482-1506) the diocese had a new flowering: the number of benefices in the 10 collegiate churches (St. Giles, Holy Cross, at B.-Glogau, Oppeln, Ratibor, Liegnitz, Brieg, Ottmachau-Neisse, Oberglogau and Falkenberg) and in the great parish churches of the city of B., of Schweidnitz and Hirschberg as well as the number of charitable institutions and ecclesiastical schools had a notable increase. It would be unjust to accuse the clergy of general corruption or of neglect of the duty of residence. Down to 1517 the proof of 37 diocesan synods can be adduced.

Protestantism was able to gain a foothold at B. (from 1520), in the duchy of Liegnitz and generally in the cities, all the more easily the more it showed itself tolerant regarding the old liturgy and the other ecclesiastical institutions, so that the people scarcely noticed the substantial principles and believed it to be a reform, while a revolution was being made; indeed the bishops themselves did not clearly realize the importance of the danger.

James von Salza (1521-39) made in 1525 to Pope Clement VII a proposal for the struggle against Protestantism, but neither he nor his successors Balthasar von Promnitz (1540-62) and Caspar von Logau (1562-74) exerted themselves so that more energetic measures might be taken. The scarcity of Catholic priests drove many parishes toward Protestant preachers. Around 1570 the greater part of the diocese was Protestant.

The reconstruction began under Bishop Martin Gerstmann (1574-85) with a visitation (1579) and a diocesan synod (1580) in which the decrees of the Council of Trent were accepted. It was then continued by the first alumnus of the German College on the episcopal see of B., Andreas von Jerin (1585-96) who called the Jesuits to B.

This Catholic reform suffered, it is true, a setback through the intrigues of the ambitious provost of the chapter Albert against the election of Bonaventura Hahn (1596-1600), but then it was resumed by Sitsch (1600-1608) and by Archduke Charles (1608-24), brother of Emperor Ferdinand II, and was never interrupted under the Polish prince Charles Ferdinand (1625-55), despite the absence of the bishop and the storm of the Thirty Years' War.

In 1628, on the basis of the Edict of Restitution, with the help of the public authority 656 churches were restored to the Catholic Church. The damages of the great war were made good and under the bishops Sebastian von Rostock (1664-1671), Cardinal Frederick of Hesse, a convert (1671-82), and the excellent administrator Count Palatine Francis Louis (1683-1732) the diocese reached a second rebirth.

The devotion of the Baroque period found in the poetry of the convert Angelus Silesius (d. 1677) and art in the burial chapel of Francis Louis in the cathedral of B. its most splendid expression. The State of the House of Habsburg protected, but at the same time also subjected the Church: from the episcopal elections there emerged more or less always the emperor's candidates.

III. MODERN TIMES FROM 1742

In the Peace of B. (1742) King Frederick II of Prussia had committed himself to maintaining the status quo of religion in that part of the diocese of B. which was assigned to him. Although on the whole he observed this pact, the regime of the Protestant State was nonetheless felt: in the territories forcibly re-Catholicized there were numerous apostasies, the chapters and convents were forced to hand over to the State up to 50% of their revenues. The weak Cardinal Sitzendorff (1732-42) and Count Schaffgotsch (1747-1795), once the king's favorite, did not succeed in changing this situation. The latter fell into disgrace (1747) and withdrew into the part of his diocese that remained under Austria, while the auxiliary bishops Strachwitz and Rothkirch administered the Prussian part as apostolic administrators.

The harshest blow the diocese suffered came in the wake of Napoleon's victory. By virtue of the Edict of Secularization of 30 Oct. 1810 the episcopal see lost the territory of Neisse-Grottkau and all its properties; the Cathedral Chapter, 8 chapters all collegiate, and 68 convents were suppressed, and their properties were expropriated in favor of the State: their total value amounted to 15 million thalers. The protest of the prince-bishop Hohenlohe (1795-1817) remained without effect.

The proud structure of the episcopal palace, which dated back to the Middle Ages, was thereby definitively destroyed; however, a free space for a new construction had remained. The bull De salute animarum of 16 July 1821 detached the diocese from the metropolis of Gnesen, with which since 1641 it had no longer had any de facto relation. The eastern part of Lusatia and the deaneries of Upper Silesia, Beuthen and Pless, were united to the diocese, and the latter itself was subjected immediately to the Holy See. To the prince-bishop, as apostolic delegate, jurisdiction was conferred over the Catholics of the province of Brandenburg and Pomerania, including Berlin. The episcopal see and the Cathedral Chapter were endowed with state subsidies. The consequences and effects of the so-called "Enlightenment" were overcome under the bishops Schimonski (1824-32), Knauer (1843-44) and Card. Diepenbrock (1845-53), a most learned man formed in the school of Sailer; Sedlnicky (1836-1840) had found himself forced to resign on account of the position he took in the struggle over mixed marriages. The German pseudo-Catholicism of the chaplain Ronge did not cause deep harm to the awakened and renewed ecclesiastical sense. Seizing the occasion offered by the freedoms granted by the Prussian Constitution of 1850, the Catholics, under the prince-bishop Förster (1853-81), also known as a valiant preacher, developed the instincts for association and the Catholic press (by means of the Katholisches Kirchenblatt, 1835-85); new orders and female congregations were introduced or arose in the diocese (for example, from as early as 1842, the Gray Sisters of St. Elizabeth for the care of the sick). The development was so strong that the movement of so-called Old Catholicism, which emerged after the Vatican Council, as well as the Kulturkampf championed by Bismarck, could indeed slow the new flowering of Catholic life, but not destroy it. The bishop was forced to take the path of exile in 1881; 145,000 souls were without orderly parochial care; in the years 1876-86 only 102 priests were ordained, while 380 died.

One of the first concerns of the "bishop of pacification" Card. Kopp, who after the death of the old prince-bishop Herzog (1882-86) was transferred from Fulda to B. (1887-1914), was to fill these gaps in the clergy, with the founding of small seminaries, with the construction of a new boarding house for theology students, who attended the courses of the faculty of Theology at the University of B. Thus it was possible to provide priests for the new churches that were built in the rapidly developed industrial centers and in the mission territories of Brandenburg-Pomerania.

Under the "bishop of Catholic Action" Card. Bertram (from 1914), with the parts of the diocese that were ceded to the Polish Republic, the diocese of Katowice was founded (1924). B. itself, by virtue of the concordat with Prussia (14 June 1929), was elevated to an archdiocese and had as suffragans the dioceses of Warmia (new Ermland), of Berlin and the prelature nullius of Schneidemühl.

In 1936 the archdiocese of B. comprised 795 parishes with 1600 priests and more than 2,300,000 souls.

Domkapitels im Mittelalter bis 1341, Weimar 1940. - Reformation and Counter-Reformation: J. Soffner, Geschichte der Reformation in Schlesien, Breslavia 1887; G. Zimmermann, Das B. Domkapitel im Zeitalter der Reformation und Gegenreformation, Weimar 1938; H. Jedin, Die Krone Böhmen und die B. Bischofswahlen, in Archiv für schles. Kirchengeschichte, 4 (1939), pp. 195-208; A. Sabisch, Bistum B. und Erzbistum Gnesen, ibid., 5 (1940), pp. 96-141. - Modern times: A. Theiner, Zustände der katholischen Kirche in Schlesien 1740-1758 sec. I-II, Ratisbon 1852 (correspondence of Benedict XIV with the bishops and with Frederick II); H. Hoffmann, Die B. Bischofswahlen in preussischer Zeit, in Zeitschrift für Geschichte Schlesien, 75 (1941), pp. 157-224.

IV. ART

The oldest building is the church of St. Giles, from the mid-13th century, with an elegant Romanesque portal; a museum is attached to it. Charles IV during his reign (1347-78) favored the restoration or transformation of almost all the churches. Thus the Cathedral, which had been begun in 1244 in primitive Gothic forms and consecrated in 1272, was completed in the lesser choir in 1361. To the church with three naves without transept, with side chapels and two pairs of towers, the portico was added (1465-68) through the work of Hans Berthold and Franzke: in the interior, which in its current arrangement dates back to the 17th and 18th centuries, are kept paintings by Willmann and the Treasury with the Madonna of the Firs by Lucas Cranach the Elder and the Christ at Emmaus attributed to Veronese. Adjoining the Cathedral are the chapels of St. Elizabeth (1680), with sculptures by Domenico Guidi, and of the Elector (1720-27), a work by J. B. Fischer von Erlach. Other notable churches are that of St. Elizabeth (13th and 14th centuries) with a tower from the 15th and 16th centuries and three polygonal apses (funerary monuments, tabernacle by Jodocus Taucher from the 15th century, Gothic choir stalls, portraits by Cranach); that of the Holy Cross, in brick and with a cruciform plan (1295-1359) with the tomb of Henry IV of Silesia; that of St. Mary Magdalene from the 2nd half of the 14th century (13th-century portal coming from another church, wrought iron works from the 16th and 17th centuries, baptismal font from 1376 and pulpit from 1579-81 by Friedrich Grass), that of St. Mary «auf dem Sande» from the 14th-15th centuries (most sumptuous 18th-century interior and the group The Pietà from the 15th century coming from Bohemia) and the other of the Name of Jesus (1689-98), characteristic for its Silesian interpretation of the Baroque (vaults painted in 1706 by J. M. Rottmayer and in 1722-27 by Christoph Tausch). The Gothic Town Hall is the best secular building of the late Middle Ages in East Prussia and the only one from that period remaining in B.: begun at the end of the 15th century and restored in the 19th century, it has a beautiful, highly ornate pediment, numerous halls among which is the «Fürstensa» and a Renaissance tower (1559). Also of interest are many houses in the city center, such as that «of the kings of Bohemia» (16th century) with frescoes from 1672 representing the emperor and seven electors, the University, the former Jesuit college, Baroque, with large halls (1728-40) on a design by C. Tausch, and the Oberpräsidium or palace of the provincial president (1766), which represents an attempt at the incipient classical style. The museums are numerous: of Fine Arts, Silesian of decorative arts and of antiquities.