Roman Catholic Territorial Prelature of Schneidemühl

Territorial Prelature of Schneidemühl Territorialis Praelatura Schneidemuhlensis Prälatur Schneidemühl Template:De-icon Prałatura Pilska Example (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Holy Family Church in Piła (Schneidemühl)
Standort
Land	Germany Poland
Territory	Posen-West-Prussia, Lauenburg and Bütow Land
Ecclesiastical province	Eastern Germany
Metropolitan	Breslau (Wrocław)
Statistics
Area	9,601 km2 (3,707 sq mi)
Population - Total - Catholics	(as of 1923) 427,522 140,000 (42.11%)
Parishes	74 (as of 1930)
Information
Rite	Latin Rite
Established	1 May 1923 disestablished 1972
Secular priests	123 (as of 1930)

The Territorial Prelature of Schneidemühl (German: Freie Prälatur Schneidemühl, Latin: Territorialis Praelatura Schneidemuhlensis, Polish: Niezależna Prałatura Pilska) was a Roman Catholic territorial prelature in first Germany (Nazi Germany as of 1933) and then Poland. It was located first in Prussian Province of Frontier March of Posen-West Prussia, but also including the Pomeranian Lauenburg and Bütow Land. It was named after its seat in Schneidemühl (Piła) and belonged to the Eastern German Ecclesiastical Province under the Breslau Metropolia since 1930.

History

Parts of the newly Polish bishoprics of Archdiocese of Gniezno-Poznań (until 1946 in personal union) and Diocese of Culm remained with Germany after the boundary changes in 1919 and 1920 following World War I. On 1 December 1920 Archbishop Edmund Dalbor of Gniezno-Poznań appointed an archiepiscopal delegate with the powers of an vicar general for the five concerned deaneries with 45 parishes and 80,000-100,000 Catholic faithful. Bishop Augustinus Rosentreter of Culm again refused to separate his three concerned deaneries located in the Pomeranian districts of Bütow (Bytow) and Lauenburg in Pomerania (Lębork) with about 40,000 Catholic parishioners.

Nevertheless, the Holy See disentangled these deaneries of Culm in 1922 and subordinated them to the archiepiscopal delegate seated in Tütz (Tuczno). On 1 May 1923 the Holy See united the concerned deaneries to form the new Apostolic Administration of Tütz, then comprising 7,695 km² with 332,443 inhabitants. The Holy See entrusted protonotary Robert Weimann (1870–1925) with the Administration Apostolic of Tütz.

In 1926 Maximilian Kaller succeeded Weimann. On Kaller's instigation the seat of the Administration was moved from Tütz to Schneidemühl (Piła) on 1 July 1926, where Kaller then took on the local parish. Schneidemühl had become the capital of Frontier March of Posen-West Prussia Province, when the Free State of Prussia had reorganised its dissected remnants of the former Provinces of Posen and of West Prussia as a province of their own on 1 July 1922.

Following the 1929 Prussian Concordat, concluded between the Nuncio to Prussia, Eugenio Pacelli, and the Free State, the administration was elevated to Territorial Prelature within the new Eastern German Ecclesiastical Province under the Metropolia of Breslau (Wrocław) in 1930. The prelates were not to be consecrated as bishops. Kaller was elevated to be the first prelate. Later in 1930 Kaller was consecrated in Schneidemühl's Holy Family Church bishop of his new Diocese of Ermland (Warmia), where moving then to the diocesan seat in Frauenburg in East Prussia (Frombork).

In 1930 the new prelature comprised 74 parishes with 123 priests dispersed in four separate exclaves, on the German side of the border to the Polish Voivodeships of Poznań and of Pomerania. Visiting the parishes in the different exclaves was a tiresome effort. While the Apostolic Administration did not dispose of an efficace administration, the Prelature had a consistory consisting of five persons, with a vicar general and an official since 1930. In the same year Franz Hartz succeeded Kaller as prelate.

Grave slab of Prelate Franz Hartz in St. Cyriac Church in Hüls, Krefeld.

In 1945 Prelate Hartz fled - like many other parishioners too - the invading Soviet Red Army and stranded in Fulda by the end of World War II. In March 1945 Poland annexed the area and the new Polish authorities expelled most of the remaining and surviving German population to Allied-occupied Germany the years between 1945 and 1948.

Cardinal August Hlond, arrogating his special papal plenipotentiary power to reorganise the episcopate in Poland, also appointed apostolic administrators for the German dioceses now under Polish rule. Although Hartz had not resigned Hlond appointed on 15 August 1945 Edmund Nowicki (1900–1971) with effect of 1 September as administrator for the Prelature and the Diocese of Berlin east of the Oder. Nowicki was titled Administrator of Cammin, Lebus and the Prelature Schneidemühl (Polish: Administrator Kamieński, Lubuski i Prałatury Pilskiej), seated in Gorzów Wielkopolski (Landsberg upon Warthe). The anti-clerical Polish government under Bolesław Bierut deposed and banished Nowicki from the administration in 1951. Thus Vicar Tadeusz Załuczkowski replaced him, followed by Vicar Zygmunt Szelążek in 1952.

Prelate Hartz died in 1953 in Hüls, a locality of Krefeld. In the same year the Schneidemühl Consistory, whose members then lived in the Federal Republic of Germany, then – following canon law – elected Ludwig Sebald Polzin (1892-1964) capitular vicar for the vacant see, confirmed by the Holy See. In 1956 Teodor Bensch (1903-1958) was appointed administrator of Cammin, Lebus and the Prelature Schneidemühl, succeeded by Jozef Michalski (only 1958), and again by Administrator Wilhelm Pluta (1910–1986), Bishop of titulature of Leptis Magna titulary, serving as administrator until 1972.

After Polzin's death the Schneidemühl Consistory had elected Wilhelm Volkmann capitular vicar in 1964, holding that position until 1972. With the reorganisation of the formerly Eastern German dioceses in the Polish-annexed areas in 1972 the Prelature of Schneidemühl was dissolved and its diocesan area divided between the Dioceses of Gorzów (since 1992 Zielona Góra-Gorzów) and of Koszalin-Kolobrzeg.

The Holy See established the office of a Visitor Apostolic for the diocesans of the Prelature of Schneidemühl exiled in today's Germany. Paul Snowadzki was appointed first visitator in 1972 (till 1982), succeeded by Wolfgang Klemp in the years 1982 to 1997. Currently, Lothar Schlegel is entrusted the visitation of the diocesans of Danzig, Ermland and Schneidemühl living in Germany.

Leadership

Administrators of Tütz

• 1923–1925: Protonotary Robert Weimann (1870–1925), already archiepiscopal delegate since 1920
• 1926–1930: Administrator Maximilian Kaller (1870–1947)

Prelates of Schneidemühl

• 1930: Prelate Maximilian Kaller, advanced to Bishop of Ermland
• 1930–1953: Prelate Franz Hartz (1870–1953)

Capitular Vicars of Schneidemühl

• 1953–1964: Ludwig Sebald Polzin (1892-1964)
• 1964–1972: Wilhelm Volkmann

Apostolic Administrators and Vicars of Cammin, Lebus and Schneidemühl

• 1945–1951: Administrator Edmund Nowicki (1900–1971), deposed and banished by Bolesław Bierut government
• 1951–1952: Vicar Tadeusz Załuczkowski
• 1952–1956: Vicar Zygmunt Szelążek
• 1956–1958: Administrator Teodor Bensch (1903-1958)
• 1958: Jozef Michalski
• 1958–1972: Administrator Wilhelm Pluta (1910–1986), advanced to Bishop of Gorzów

Apostolic Visitators for the exiled Schneidemühl diocesans

• 1972–1982: Paul Snowadzki
• 1982–1997: Wolfgang Klemp
• 1997–present Msgr. Lothar Schlegel

Literature

• Die Apostolische Administratur Schneidemühl. Ein Buch für das katholische Volk, Franz Westpfahl (ed.), Schneidemühl: Verlag des Johannesboten, 1928.
• Kirchliches Handbuch für das katholische Deutschland, Amtliche Zentralstelle für Kirchliche Statistik des Katholischen Deutschlands (ed.), Cologne: Bachem, 1909-1943, here: vol. 20 '1937/1938' (publ. 1937), vol. 21: '1939/1940' (publ. 1939) and vol. 22 '1943' (publ. 1943).