BISKUPSTWA PODLEGŁE BEZPOŚREDNIO STOLICY APOSTOLSKIEJ W DZIEJACH ORGANIZACJI KOŚCIOŁA ŁACIŃSKIEGO NA ZIEMIACH POLSKICH
Bishops Directly Subordinate to the Holy See in the History of the Organization of the Latin Church on Polish Lands

Summary/Abstract: According to the practice and principles of Church law, bishoprics should be in relation to the metropolis. These in turn in antiquity were organized based on ethnic and historical territorial communities, mission dependency or on the existing administrative structures of state organizations. The current agenda of Western, Christian civilization was shaken by the events of „wandering peoples.” New national organisms arose from the ruins of the Roman Empire. There appeared national borders that did not always coincide with existing metropolitan or diocesan territories. Striving for full independence, the new nation-states, as happens today, did not agree to fulfill acts of jurisdiction by authorities coming from foreign hierarchies in their territory. Thus, in Western Christianity lead by a central authority, there arose the practice of bishoprics subordinate to the Holy See, which did not enter into the framework of their own, state metropolitan organization. Since the submission of a diocese under the direct sovereignty of Rome was an exception to the general legal practice of the Church, the reasons for granting this privilege were different, and there were distinct results in exempt dioceses. Since the Polish lands were located on the eastern fringes of Western Christianity and the Church led Christianization, which required the creation of new dioceses, the Holy See invoked them into existence, not including them temporarily into any metropolitan area (e.g. the Livonian, Żmudzka, Serecka dioceses). Political considerations determined the immediacy of the Dioceses of Warsaw, Wigierska, Gdansk, and Krakow. A kind of struggle for the legal status of direct dependence on Rome was caused by church and political factors in the Kamien, Wroclaw and Warmia dioceses. Lodz’s direct subordination to the Holy See was a prelude to the elevation of this bishopric to the state of archbishopric of the metropolis.

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