Rite Latin Rite Area 2,500 km² Cathedral Oliwa Cathedral | Pope Francis Country Poland Metropolitan archbishop Sławoj Leszek Głódź | |
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Population
- Total
- Catholics (as of 2013)
965,077
900,608 (93.3%) Co-cathedral The Co-Cathedral of St Mary Auxiliary bishops Wieslaw Szlachetka, Zbigniew Zieliński | ||
The Archdiocese of Gdańsk (Latin: Gedanen(sis)) is an archdiocese located in the city of Gdańsk in Poland.
Contents
According to the church statistics Sunday mass attendance was 38.1% in 2013 making it lower than the Polish average of weekly mass attendance (39.1%)
History
After World War I the Free City of Danzig was split from Germany according to the Treaty of Versailles. The Catholic congregation West of the Vistula belonged to the Diocese of Chelmno, which was formerly also part of the German Empire but after 1919 part of the Second Polish Republic and East of the Vistula to the Diocese of Ermland, which remained part of Weimar Germany. Germans within the administration of the Diocese of Chelmno were replaced by Polish priests and the Polish language was implemented as binding. While about 130,000 people in Danzig were catholic, only about 10 percent of them were Polish-speaking and the first attempts to reorganize the ecclesiastical allocation were made in spring 1919, when members of the German congregation asked for an affiliation to the Diocese of Ermland.
While these attempts were supported by the German government, the Polish government tried to preserve the current situation. Pope Pius XI decided to establish an Apostolic Administrator of the Free City of Danzig on 24 April 1922, which was directly subordinated to the Pope. In 1925 a concordat between Poland and the Holy See was signed and the Apostolic Administrator was now supposed to be subordinated to the Nuncio of Warsaw, which caused protests among the local populace. Thus the Pope established the exempt Diocese of Danzig on 30 December 1925 and appointed Edward O'Rourke as the first Bishop on 2 January 1926.
The Diocese was promoted as Metropolitan Archdiocese of Gdańsk on 25 March 1992. On 17 November 1993 the Archbishop issued the instructions on the status of Kashubian as a language of liturgy.
Special churches
(Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary), Gdańsk Oliwa
(Co-Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary), Gdańsk
(St. Nicholas Basilica), Gdańsk
(St. Brigid Basilica), Gdańsk