Leopold von Sedlnitzky
Leopold von Sedlnitzky (also: Leopold Graf Sedlnitzky Odrowąż of Choltitz, also Siedlnicky Odrowoncz; born July 29, 1787 Geppersdorf, Austrian Silesia, † March 25, 1871 in Berlin) was Prince-Bishop of Breslau.
Background and Career
Sedlnitzky came from the Moravian- Silesian noble family of Sedlnitzky of Choltitz. His parents, Imperial Count Joseph von Sedlnitzky and Maria Josepha, born Countess von Haugwitz, given him early on in the ecclesiastical career. At the age of eleven he received a Domherrenstelle at the Wrocław Cathedral in 1802 a Kanonikerstelle at the collegiate Neisser.
After training by a private tutor, he studied philosophy and theology in October 1804 at the University of Breslau. Because of the threat of Wrocław by the French army in 1807 he returned back to Geppersdorf and continued his studies privately. In 1809 he passed his theological examination and received 1811 in the Breslau Cross Church ordained a priest by Bishop Prince Hohenlohe.
Since he could not accept because of health reasons, no chaplains office, he joined as an assessor and secretary in the Episcopal Vicariate, where he was soon exposed to hostility and suspicion. He was accused of, inter alia, a member of the Bible Society, founded by Johann Michael Sailer, which advocated a union of the denominations on the basis of biblical values, what have Sedlnitzky away from the Catholic doctrine. Because of the conflict, he gave up the Vicariate Office and was a royal council of the provincial consistory at Breslau Upper Bureau, which also continued to promote Sedlnitzkys ecclesiastical advancement.
In 1819 he was canon Breslauer, 1830 with royal support and provost. After the death of Prince-Bishop Emmanuel of Schimonsky he was appointed on 18 December 1832 vicar.
Bishop of Breslau
At the request of the Prussian government in 1835 the cathedral chapter elected Leopold of Sedlnitzky unanimously elected Prince-Bishop, although there were strong objections to his choice by the curia, as he took the position of the Catholic Enlightenment. After Pope Gregory XVI. had given its approval on 11 July 1836 adopted on 18 September of the year of Gniezno Archbishop Martin Dunin episcopal ordination ago.
Soon after ordination he was exposed to another suspicions within the diocese. Nevertheless, he undertook Firm and visitations and directed basic administrative reforms in the past then in Austrian Silesia diocese part one. After he advocated the state legislature and therefore a toleration of non-Catholic parenting in an interfaith marriage in the so-called mixed marriage dispute in 1837, he learned by Pope Gregory XVI. with brief of January 18, 1839 a sharp rebuke, in him the support of the Hermesianism was accused. Sedlnitzky withdrew its July 18, 1840 as bishop. On 10 October of the year, the Pope accepted the resignation.
Confession
Sedlnitzky now lived in Berlin, where he was appointed by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, a member of the Prussian State Council, and supplied with a state pension because he had renounced the income from his former episcopal position. Due to the increasing Ultramontanism he went away in the next few years internally by the Catholic Church, so that his conversion to the Protestant denomination, which caused a great sensation, was only a consequence of this development.
On the first Sunday of Advent (November 30 ) In 1862 he received at St. Mary's Church for the first time the Protestant Supper. In the same year he founded in Berlin, the Pauline, a dormitory for Protestant high school students, and in 1869 the Johanneum, a seminary for Protestant theology students. In his will he gave also the Breslau Evangelical Theologenkonvikt.
After his death, he was granted his wish to be buried according to the Protestant cemetery in Rankau in the district of Wroclaw.
His brother Joseph was an Austrian civil servant.