Diocese of Brno
The diocese was founded during reforms by Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and her son Joseph II in the 1770's; these reforms changed the Church's life in the entire Holy Roman Empire significantly.
Stimulated by Empress Maria Theresa, Pope Pius VI issued a bull on 5th December 1777 to raise the Diocese of Olomouc to the rank of archdiocese and to found a new diocese in the south-west of Moravia with a centre in Brno.
First bishop of Brno was Count Matyáš František Chorinský of Ledská; until his appointment he had been a provost of the Brno chapter and an auxiliary bishop of Olomouc. The diocese of Brno originally involved 151 parishes in 18 deaneries. The third millennium it entered with 452 parishes, the highest number of all Czech and Moravian dioceses.
Current (13th) bishop of Brno is Msgr. Vojtěch Cikrle (born 1946). He was appointed by Pope John Paul II in February 1990, putting thus an end to an 18-year-long vacancy.
Nine years later, Pope John Paul II appointed an auxiliary bishop for the diocese, Msgr. Petr Esterka (b. 1935), who has been living in the USA for more than 50 years. Bishop Esterka was entrusted pastoral care of Czechs living abroad.
Patron saints of the Diocese of Brno as well as of its cathedral on Petrov are Ss. Peter and Paul (feast on 29th June). Consecration of the cathedral is commemorated on 21st May.
Statistical data
The diocese covers an area of 10,597 sq km; it is a home for 1,354,361 inhabitants, out of them 533,250 people (39.4 per cent) declared themselves Catholics during the 2001 census.
450 current parishes are administered by 367 priests; 90 of them are members of some religious order.
11 new churches and 20 chapels were added after 1990 to the number of 608 churches, 531 chapels and 220 small chapels.
There are 61 places of pilgrimage in the diocese, 33 of them dedicated to Our Lady. Among the most significant are Brno-Tuřany, Hluboké Mašůvky, Kostelní Vydří, Křtiny, Přibyslavice, Sloup in the Moravian Karst, Vranov u Brna, Zelená hora near Žďár nad Sázavou, and Žarošice.
There are two chapters in the diocese. The Royal Chapter of Ss. Peter and Paul in Brno was founded on 7th March 1296 and the Collegiate Chapter of St. Wenceslaus in Mikulov on 22nd August 1625. A provostry was founded at Hradiště near Znojmo in 1214; all the time it has been administered by the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star.
11 church schools were (re-)opened in the diocese after 1990, located in Brno, Jihlava, Třebíč, and Žďár nad Sázavou. An important role is played by the Catechetical Centre; its courses were attended by some 3,000 people in 1990-2004. Courses for pastoral assistants in parishes and for acolytes are held since 2002 by the Pastoral Centre; it also prepares other forms of education for large number of the faithful.
Since 1995, the Christian Radio Proglas has been broadcasting from Brno; this unique radio station of its kind in the Czech Republic has addressed hundreds of thousands people so far.
There are 16 men and 24 women religious orders and congregations in the Diocese of Brno. Existing for the longest time here are Benedictines in Rajhrad, who commemorated 950th anniversary of their arrival to Moravia in 1998. The oldest women order in the diocese are Cistercian sisters at the Porta Coeli monastery in Předklášteří u Tišnova, founded in 1233 by Queen Constance of Hungary, mother of St. Agnes of Bohemia.
Coat-of-arms of the Brno diocese
Since the diocese's origins a quartered shield was used as its coat-of-arms. Two fields reminded of Empress Maria Theresa, foundress of the diocese, and two modulated the coat-of-arms of the Archdiocese of Olomouc, where the Brno diocese originally belonged.
After a period when the original coat-of-arms was not used and because of the apparent reference to the Habsburg dynasty, Bishop Karel Skoupý introduced in 1946 a new coat-of-arms: black shield with golden keys and a silver sword below. These symbols were taken over from the cathedral patrocinium.
Flag of the diocese
The flag of the Diocese of Brno was designed by Zdeněk Velebný from Ústí nad Orlicí and blessed by Bishop Vojtěch Cikrle during the diocesan youth day on 8th April 2006. It symbolizes fellowship, it is a symbol of union and signalizes where its bearers belong. It is used during ecclesiastic, diocesan or parish activities.
Description: In the central blue strip – recalling the Marian tradition – there are symbols of the diocese taken from the cathedral patrocinium, golden keys and a silver sword below. Outer strips describe the diocese's position: red and yellow are colours of Moravia, red and white colours of the Moravian metropolis, Brno. The flag is divided horizontally in a proportion 2:1:1:9:1:1:2.
Contact:
Biskupství brněnské
Petrov 8
601 43 Brno
www.biskupstvi.cz
Download:flag_Brno.jpg, 32 kB
