Following the appointment of Archbishop Heiner Koch (pictured at left with Berlin’s cathedral chapter) to Berlin, the other bishops of eastern Germany have expressed concern at the trend that seems to be developing, a tendency for bishops in that part of the country to be reassigned within a few years after being made ordinaries there. And they have a point.
- In 2010, Bishop Konrad Zdarsa left Görlitz after having been the bishop there for three years and three months.
- In 2014, Cardinal Rainer Woelki left Berlin after having been its archbishop for three years.
- And on Monday, Bishop Heiner Koch left Dresden-Meißen after almost 2 and half years.
The dioceses of eastern Germany, or most of the territory of the former communist German Democratic Republic have a fairly short history in their current form. On the 27th of June, 1994, Erfurt, Magdeburg and Görlitz were promoted from Apostolic Administration to full dioceses, Berlin, which had already been a diocese since the 1930s, became a metropolitan archdiocese, reflecting the new freedom of governance that the Church had now gained in the former communist parts of Germany. The Apostolic Administration of Schwerin, in the north, became part of the newly established Archdiocese of Hamburg in October of that same year. Dresden-Meißen was the odd one out, having existed in its current form, except for a change of name in 1979, since 1921.
The short tenures of Bishops Zdarsa and Koch and Cardinal Woelki in the dioceses mentioned above came in all cases after significantly longer tenures of their predecessors: In Dresden-Meißen, Joachim Reinelt had been bishop for 24 years; in Berlin, Cardinal Sterzinsky was ordinary for 17 years; and in Görlitz, Bishop Rudolf Müller enjoyed 12 years as bishop. The contrast is evident.
In fact, the eastern German episcopate as a whole is young. Only Magdeburg’s Gerhard Feige (pictured) has a decade as bishop behind him, and the next senior is Görlitz’s Wolfgang Ipolt, ordinary for a mere four years.
In light of all this, Bishop Feige said about the transfer of Archbishop Koch, “Given the particularly difficult situation of Catholics in the new federal states, this is likely to add to a further destabilisation of the situation of the Church […] Unfortunately the impression is being given that the eastern German dioceses are something like ‘railway shunting yards’ or ‘traineeships’ to qualify bishops for ‘higher offices'”. Bishop Ipolt said that he hoped these rapid reassignments would not become habit. “In the future we need active shepherds for the people of God, here in the Diaspora of the east of Germany”. Together with Erfurt’s Bishop Ulrich Neymeyr, he does think that Archbishop Koch’s two-year experience in the east will be a boon in Berlin.
A bishop is the visible head of a local Church in matters of doctrine, worship and governance. The priests of a diocese assist him in these tasks. Stability is a great good in these matters, so it should be avoided to move bishops too often. In that sense I can understand the concerns of the bishops outlined above. On the other hand, as Archbishop Koch himself has also said, in the end a bishop goes where he is called, just like the Apostles, whose successors they are, went where they were sent.
The Archdiocese of Berlin has a bishop again, but Dresden-Meißen is vacant again. Should the bishops of the east be worried that another one of their ranks will be asked to move there? Anything is possible of course, but I don’t think that this is likely, especially since the concerns have now been voiced. But if the residing ordinaries are not be moved anymore, there are two auxiliary bishops in the area who could conceivably be tasked with governing a diocese of their own. Erfurt’s Bishop Reinhard Hauke has already done so during the two-year vacancy of the see there, before Bishop Neymeyr arrived last year. Berlin’s Bishop Matthias Heinrich is 60 and has been an auxiliary for six years.
1: Who is Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu? He is the Apostolic Nuncio to Nicaragua since 12 November 2012. 52 years old, the native Nigerian was consecrated as a bishop in 6 January. Before his current position as the Holy See’s ambassador to the government and Church of Nicaragua, he was Head of Protocol at the Secretariat of State, and before that a priest of the Diocese of Aba in Nigeria. As an archbishop without a diocese of his own, he has been given the titular archdiocese of Aquaviva, which is located south of Bari in Italy.
2: How many Catholic Churches are under Diocese of Rotterdam? Encompassing virtually the entire Dutch province of Zuid-Holland, the Diocese of Rotterdam is the most densely populated of the Dutch dioceses. It is home to more than half a million Catholics, of whom about 8.6% are regular Churchgoers. Bishop Hans van den Hende has been the ordinary since 10 May 2011. The diocesan website states that there are 78 parishes and 7 parish federations in the diocese. As for the number of churches, we may assume that each parish has use of several churches.
3: How come Berlin’s cathedral chapter gets to elect its own bishop? Like all dioceses, the cathedral chapter of the Archdiocese of Berlin took over the day-to-day affairs of running the diocese after the previous archbishop, Cardinal Georg Sterzinsky, retired. They had the obligation to choose an Apostolic Administrator until a new archbishop was appointed. They also were to create a so-called terna, a list of three names which they sent to the Apostolic Nuncio. This list, with any additions and notes that the Nuncio added, was sent to Rome. Another terna came from the German Bishops’ Conference. These lists, and any other pertinent information, was then used by the Congregation for Bishops to supply a final list to the Pope, who then made his final choice. In that choice, the Pope had no obligation to actually select one of the names on the list. He could theoretically have chosen another priest to become archbishop of Berlin. Whether Cardinal Rainer Woelki, who was appointed on 2 July 2011, was on any of the ternae remains anyone’s guess.
With yesterday’s retirement of Bishop Joachim Reinelt the Berlin Church Province is close to completing a significant generational shift. For the first time since the province, which consists of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Berlin and the Dioceses of Görlitz and Dresden-Meiβen, was established in its modern form in 1994*, a new generation of bishops is set to take over.
February was the month of 
In May we saw and read about 
August was a big month because of 
In November, Cardinal Burke 
A random visit to German website 
With today’s acceptance of the resignation of Georg Cardinal Sterzinsky, a major European capital’s Catholic flock is left without an archbishop. For the time being of course, but the cardinal archbishop, who turned 75 some two weeks ago, leaves an interesting act to follow. When he was appointed in 1989 there was no Archdiocese of Berlin. Sterzinsky, until then a priest of Erfurt-Meiningen (now simply Erfurt), became the bishop of a divided diocese in an East Germany that started to show the cracks that would lead to the German reunification in 1990. Because of the important role of Berlin in the new Germany, and its position in history among other German cities, Bishop Sterzinsky was elevated to Cardinal in 1991, aged only 55. The reorganisation of the dioceses that followed the Wende saw Berlin elevated to an archdiocese and Sterzinsky as its first archbishop.
In Caelo et in Terra 