Apostolic Nunciature to Germany

Last updated
Apostolic Nunciature to Germany
Be Apostolic nunciature 03.jpg
Apostolic Nunciature to Germany
Location Berlin
Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Nikola Eterovic

The Apostolic Nunciature to Germany is an ecclesiastical office of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. [1] [2] It is a diplomatic post of the Holy See, whose representative is called the Apostolic Nuncio to Germany with the rank of an ambassador. The office of the nunciature has been located in Berlin since 1925, in union with the new Apostolic Nuncio to Prussia until 1934. Between 1920 and 1925 the nunciature was held in personal union by the Apostolic Nuncio to Bavaria, seated in Munich. With the unconditional surrender of Germany in 1945 the diplomatic ties were interrupted and reestablished for West Germany only in 1951, then in Bonn. In 2001 the nunciature moved again to Berlin.

Contents

Three Popes once served as nuncios in what is today's Germany: Alexander VII, Leo XII and Pius XII. As of 2014 the Apostolic Nuncio to Germany is Nikola Eterović, appointed by Pope Francis on September 21, 2013.

List of Apostolic Nuncios to Germany

To the Holy Roman Empire

Lorenzo Campeggio, the first nuncio in the territory of modern-day Germany Lorenzo Campeggio.jpg
Lorenzo Campeggio, the first nuncio in the territory of modern-day Germany

The first nuncio in the territory of modern-day Germany was Lorenzo Campeggio in 1511, as the nuncio and cardinal protector to the Imperial Court. [3] His role was ratified in 1513 by Leo X, the new pope. [3] The nunciature became permanently accredited in 1530, whereafter the nuncios often followed Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor even when he left Imperial territory. [3]

In Cologne

The Cologne nunciature was erected in 1584 for the northwest of the Holy Roman Empire and the Rhineland. [3] The Nuncios to Cologne were accredited to the Archbishop-Electorates of Cologne, Mainz and Trier. In 1596, the Low Countries (Netherlands) were detached from the nunciature of Cologne, receiving their own nuncio in Brussels. [3]

Reunified with the Apostolic Nunciature to Austria or to the Emperor

In Munich

In Berlin

Pacelli, Nuncio to Germany, with Wilhelm von Opel and others in Russelsheim, Hesse, 1 October 1928. Bundesarchiv Bild 102-06728, Nuntius Kardinal Pacelli in Russelsheim.jpg
Pacelli, Nuncio to Germany, with Wilhelm von Opel and others in Rüsselsheim, Hesse, 1 October 1928.
Cesare Orsenigo, nuncio to Germany during World War II, with Hitler and Joachim von Ribbentrop. Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H26878, Berlin, Neujahrsempfang in der neuen Reichskanzlei.jpg
Cesare Orsenigo, nuncio to Germany during World War II, with Hitler and Joachim von Ribbentrop.
Aloisius Joseph Muench, nuncio to post-war West Germany. Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F007416-0008, Bahnhof Bonn, Verabschiedung Apostolischer Nuntius.jpg
Aloisius Joseph Muench, nuncio to post-war West Germany.

Germany and the Holy See concluded diplomatic ties on 1 May 1920. [4] Abp Eugenio Pacelli, Nuncio to Bavaria, was appointed in personal union "Nuncio to Germany". As with Bavaria, diplomatic relations were also established with the most important state of Germany, Prussia, in 1925, on which occasion Pacelli gave up the Bavarian nunciature and was appointed Nuncio to Prussia in personal union with the nunciature to Germany, and moved to Berlin the same year. Until the dissolution of the German federal states in May 1934, the respective Nuncio to Germany remained also Nuncio to Prussia by a separate title. The relations with Bavaria remained fully intact with Pacelli's successor Nuncio Abp Alberto Vassallo-Torregrossa, whose ambassadorial rank fell also away in 1934 together with the existence of Bavaria as an entity of statehood; he was however able to more or less continue affairs until he left the country in 1936 at the insistence of the Nazi regime.

In Bonn for the Federal Republic of Germany only

With West Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, gaining quasi-sovereignty in 1951, the ties with the Holy See are upgraded again to nunciature level. The East German Democratic Republic had no diplomatic ties with the Vatican.

In Berlin since 2001

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Cheney, David M. "Nunciature to Germany". Catholic-Hierarchy.org . Retrieved June 16, 2018. [self-published]
  2. ↑ Chow, Gabriel. "Apostolic Nunciature to Germany". GCatholic.org. Retrieved June 16, 2018. [self-published]
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Nuncio"  . Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  4. ↑ Article: "Nunzius" in: Der Große Brockhaus: Handbuch des Wissens in zwanzig Bänden: 21 vols. , Leipzig: Brockhaus, 151928–1935; vol. 13 (1932), pp. 539seq., here p. 540.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pope Pius XII</span> Head of the Catholic Church from 1939 to 1958

Pope Pius XII, born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli, was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death in October 1958. Before his election to the papacy, he served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio to Germany, and Cardinal Secretary of State, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with European and Latin American nations, including the Reichskonkordat with the German Reich.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giovanni Lajolo</span>

Giovanni Lajolo is a cardinal and former president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State and president of the Governatorate of Vatican City State.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aloisius Joseph Muench</span> American prelate

Aloisius Joseph Muench was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Fargo from 1935 to 1959, and as Apostolic Nuncio to Germany from 1951 to 1959. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1959.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani</span> Italian cardinal

Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani was an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as Secretary of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, Vicar General of His Holiness, Secretary of the Holy Office, and Dean of the College of Cardinals. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1930.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pascalina Lehnert</span> German Catholic nun

Pascalina Lehnert, born Josefina Lehnert, was a German Roman Catholic sister who served as Pope Pius XII's housekeeper and secretary from his period as Apostolic Nuncio to Bavaria in 1917 until his death as pope in 1958. She managed the papal charity office for Pius XII from 1944 until the pontiff's death in 1958. She was a Sister of the Holy Cross, Menzingen order.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ludwig Kaas</span> German priest and politician

Ludwig Kaas was a German Roman Catholic priest and politician of the Centre Party during the Weimar Republic. He was instrumental in brokering the Reichskonkordat between the Holy See and the German Reich.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angelo Dolci</span>

Angelo Maria Dolci was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who was made a cardinal in 1933. He was Bishop of Gubbio from 1900 to 1906, Archbishop of Amalfi from 1911 to 1914, and Apostolic Vicar of Constantinople from 1914 to 1922. He also served in the diplomatic corps of the Holy See as an Apostolic Delegate or Apostolic Nuncio from 1906 to 1910 and from 1914 to 1933.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francesco Pacelli</span>

Francesco Pacelli was an Italian lawyer and the elder brother of Eugenio Pacelli, who would later become Pope Pius XII. He acted as a legal advisor to Pope Pius XI; in this capacity, he assisted Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri in the negotiation of the Lateran Treaty, which established the independence of Vatican City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cesare Orsenigo</span> Roman Catholic archbishop (1873 – 1946)

Cesare Vincenzo Orsenigo was Apostolic Nuncio to Germany from 1930 to 1945, during the rise of Nazi Germany and World War II. Along with the German ambassador to the Vatican, Diego von Bergen and later Ernst von Weizsäcker, Orsenigo was the direct diplomatic link between Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII and the Nazi regime, meeting several times with Adolf Hitler directly and frequently with other high-ranking officials and diplomats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nunciature of Eugenio Pacelli</span>

Eugenio Pacelli was a nuncio in Munich to Bavaria from 23 April 1917 to 23 June 1920. As there was no nuncio to Prussia or Germany at the time, Pacelli was, for all practical purposes, the nuncio to all of the German Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foreign relations of Pope Pius XII</span>

Foreign relations of Pope Pius XII extended to most of Europe and a few states outside Europe. Pius XII was pope from 1939 to 1958, during World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Germany–Holy See relations</span> Bilateral relations

Formal diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the current Federal Republic of Germany date to the 1951 and the end of the Allied occupation. Historically the Vatican has carried out foreign relations through nuncios, beginning with the Apostolic Nuncio to Cologne and the Apostolic Nuncio to Austria. Following the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and the Congress of Vienna, an Apostolic Nuncio to Bavaria replaced that of Cologne and that mission remained in Munich through several governments. From 1920 the Bavarian mission existed alongside the Apostolic Nuncio to Germany in Berlin, with which it was merged in 1934.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holy See–Poland relations</span> Bilateral relations

Holy See–Poland relations are foreign relations between the Holy See and the Republic of Poland. As of 2015, approximately 92.9 percent of Poles belong to the Catholic Church.

The Apostolic Nunciature to Cologne was an ecclesiastical office of the Roman Catholic Church established in 1584. The nuncios were accredited to the Archbishop-Electorates of Cologne, Mainz and Trier. It was a diplomatic post of the Holy See, whose representative was called the Apostolic Nuncio at Cologne, one of the states of the Holy Roman Empire. The office of the nunciature was located in Cologne until 1795, when France occupied the city. The last nuncio, officiating until 1804, resided in Augsburg, while the Archbishop-Electorate had been dissolved in 1803.

The Apostolic Nunciature to Bavaria was an ecclesiastical office of the Roman Catholic Church in Bavaria. It was a diplomatic post of the Holy See, whose representative was called the Apostolic Nuncio to Bavaria, a state – consecutively during the nunciature's existence – of the Holy Roman Empire, of its own sovereignty, and then of Imperial, Weimar and finally Nazi Germany. The office of the nunciature was located in Munich from 1785 to 1936. Prior to this, there was one nunciature in the Holy Roman Empire, which was the nunciature in Cologne, accredited to the Archbishop-Electorates of Cologne, Mainz and Trier.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikola Eterović</span> Croatian Roman Catholic archbishop

Nikola Eterović is a Croatian prelate of the Catholic Church who has been a titular archbishop and the Apostolic Nuncio to Germany since 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apostolic Nunciature to Ukraine</span> Diplomatic Mission of the Holy See in Ukraine

The Apostolic Nunciature to Ukraine the diplomatic mission of the Holy See to Ukraine. It is located in Kyiv. The current Apostolic Nuncio is Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, who was named to the position by Pope Francis on 15 June 2021.

The Apostolic Nunciature to Prussia provided representation on behalf of the Holy See to the Free State of Prussia. It was based in Berlin.

Alberto Vassallo di Torregrossa was an Italian prelate and church diplomat.

Luigi Centoz, also known as Louis Centoz, was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who spent more than five decades in the diplomatic service of the Holy See, either in Rome or serving in offices abroad. He became an archbishop in 1932 and served as an Apostolic Nuncio from then until 1962. He was Vice Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church from 1962 to 1969.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.