Patriarch of Venice

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Patriarch of Venice
Archbishopric
catholic
Saint Mark's Basilica
Website
www.patriarcatovenezia.it

The Patriarch of Venice (

cardinal
, the use of the colour red in non-liturgical vestments. In that case, the red biretta is topped by a tuft, as is the custom with other bishops who are not cardinals.

The diocese of Venice was created in 774 as suffragan of the Patriarchate of Grado. It was only in 1451[1] that, in consideration of the political influence of the city, its bishops were accorded the title of patriarch by the pope.

By a relatively recent tradition, the Patriarch of Venice is created a

cardinal at the consistory following his appointment, though nothing requires the pope to do so. The current patriarch Francesco Moraglia
remains an archbishop.

In the last centuries of the

elected pope. Since the end of the republic, patriarchs have rarely been of Venetian origin, and three of them became pope in the 20th century alone: Pius X (1903), John XXIII (1958) and John Paul I
(1978).

Ecclesiastical history

Early history

of the Patriarch of Venice.

The Venetian islands at first belonged to the diocese of

Patriarchate of Grado
.

In 774 or 775,

island of Olivolo. The first bishop, Obelerius, was nominated, invested and enthroned by the doge and consecrated by the patriarch.[3][4] The Bishop of Olivolo was subordinate to Grado and had jurisdiction over the islands of Olivolo, Rialto, Luprio, Gemini, Scopulo or Dorsoduro, Spinalonga, Biria and other minor islands of the central group.[5][6] The diocese's cathedral was San Pietro di Castello.[7]

In 828 the body of Saint

Olivolo island in Venice, the saint made signs (or so it was claimed) showing he did not want to be placed in the custody of the bishop. Instead, he was taken to the doge's chapel, and planning began to create a magnificent new temple, St Mark's Basilica, suitable for such important relics.[9] The legend that St. Mark himself had preached the Gospel at Venice grew up in later times.[3]

In 1074, the Bishop of Olivolo began to be styled the Bishop of Castello.

Golden Bull
recognized the full independence of Venice, along with freedom from tributes, trade restrictions and customs duties.

The Republic of Venice began its Golden Age under the Doge Enrico Dandolo (1192–1205). Under him the French Crusading army of the Fourth Crusade was used to bring Trieste and Zara under Venetian sway, and then to obtain a large part of the Latin Empire of Constantinople along the east coast of the Adriatic, most of the Peloponnesus and settlements in the Sea of Marmora, the Black Sea and the Aegean.[3]

The relationship between the bishop, the patriarch and the doge was complex. The bishops of Olivolo, and then Castello, were technically suffragans of the Patriarch of Grado. In practice they maintained independence. From the middle of the 11th century the patriarchs took up residence for most of the time at San Silvestro, Venice, while the bishop was based at San Pietro on the east of the city. An important role was played by the primicerio, based in Saint Mark's, who represented the doge and the city government. The primicerio invested the bishops, abbots and patriarchs.[11]

Patriarchate's history

Saint Peter's Chair, the oldest throne of the diocese of Venice in the co-cathedral of Saint Peter of Castello. It is likely an ancient Muslim gravestone transported from Antioch by merchants.

In 1451, upon the death of Domenico Michel, Patriarch of Grado,

Papal Bull "Regis aeterni."[1] Thus Venice succeeded to the whole metropolitan jurisdiction of Grado's ecclesiastical province, including the sees of Dalmatia
.

In 1466 the territory of the Patriarchate was expanded by merging the suppressed Diocese of Equilio.

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

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,

Gorizia
. With this act the Patriarchate of Venice became sole heir to the throne of St. Mark in northeastern Italy.

After 1797 and the

Bishop of Faenza
, but in 1814 that prelate returned to his own see.

In 1819 the

Habsburg Emperor of Austria and in earlier times by the Venetian Senate
, but after eleven months this pretension was abandoned.

During the twentieth century three patriarchs of Venice achieved election as pope: Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, elected Pope Pius X in 1903; Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, elected Pope John XXIII in 1958; and Albino Luciani, elected Pope John Paul I in 1978.

.

List of Patriarchs of Venice

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b "Translatio patriarchalis Ecclesiae Graden. ad civitatem Venetiarum, cum suppressione tituli eiusdem Ecclesiae Gradensis", in: Bullarum, diplomatum et privilegiorum sanctorum Romanorum pontificum Taurinensis editio, vol. 5 (Turin: Franco et Dalmazzo, 1860), pp. 107–109.
  2. ^ Ferraro, 26–28
  3. ^ a b c Venice: Catholic Encyclopedia.
  4. ^ The original source for this is John the Deacon's Venetian chronicle (Iohannis Diaconi, Chronicon Venetum, in: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, vol. 7, Hannover: Hahn, 1846, pp. 4–38, here p. 13)
  5. ^ Orsoni 1828, p. 19.
  6. ^ The original source for this is Andrea Dandolo's Chronica per extensum descripta (in: Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, new ed., Bologna: Zanichelli, 1938, vol. 12, part 1, here: lib. VII, cap. 12, part. 16 on p. 121). Dandolo also states that these islands had previously been subordinated to the diocese of Met(h)amaucum. But as he wrote his chronicle almost six centuries after the fact and since both these assertions cannot be corroborated by any document, they have been called into question, see Paul Fridolin Kehr, "Rom und Venedig bis ins XII. Jahrhundert", in: Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, vol. 19 (1927), pp. 1–180, here p. 43. See p. 41 for a similar lack of corroboration regarding the story, first attested in the Chronicon Altinate (written sometime between the 11th and 13th century) and repeated by Dandolo (Chronica, lib. VI, cap. 7, part. 14), that the diocese of Met(h)amaucum was supposedly founded by the Bishop of Padua who is said to have taken refuge there during the Lombard invasion.
  7. ^ Nicol 1992, p. 11.
  8. ^ Sethre 2003, p. 24.
  9. ^ Sethre 2003, p. 25.
  10. ^ Ross 2012.
  11. ^ Romano 2013, p. 224.

Sources

  • Ferraro, Joanne M. (2001). Marriage Wars in Late Renaissance Venice. Oxford University Press. .
  • Nicol, Donald M. (7 May 1992). Byzantium and Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations. Cambridge University Press. .
  • Romano, Dennis (2013). "Venetian exceptionalism?". Churchmen and Urban Government in Late Medieval Italy, c.1200-c.1450: Cases and Contexts. Cambridge University Press. .
  • Sethre, Janet (2003). The Souls of Venice. McFarland. .
  • Orsoni, Alessandro (1828). Cronologia storica dei Vescovi Olivolensi detti dappoi Castellani e successivi Patriarchi di Venezia. Gaspari.
  • Ross, Kelley L. (2012). "Patriarchs of Aquileia, Grado, and Venice".
  • GCatholic.org[self-published source]