Martin Von Dunin
Martin Von Dunin [1]
archbishop of Posen, was born November 11, 1774, at Wat, near Rawa. He studied theology at Bromberg and at Rome, in the Collegium Germanicum, and was ordained priest in 1797. In 1829 he was made administrator of the archdiocese of Posen; as such he warned, in a pastoral of December 8, 1830, the Polish members of the diocese against taking part in the Polish Revolution. On July 10, 1831, he was consecrated archbishop of Gnesen and Posen. In 1834 he reorganized the episcopal seminaries of those two cities. At the beginning of the year 1837 arch bishop Dunin found his mind troubled by the deviations from the strict rules of the Church of Rome which had gradually come to be established in his diocese with regard to "mixed" marriages (between Roman Catholics and Protestants). He therefore asked the Prussian government to allow him either to publish in his diocese the brief on the subject by pope Pius VIII, or to ask in Rome for new instructions, or to proceed according to the bull of pope Benedict XIV of the year 1748. All these requests were refused by the Prussian government, and Dunin therefore, on February 27, 1838, by a pastoral letter, forbade the clergy of his diocese, under penalty of suspension, to solemnize any mixed marriage at all. A royal rescript (Cabinets order) demanded of him a recall of this letter; and, when he declined this, a ministerial rescript declared it null and void. Against the archbishop himself criminal proceedings were begun. Before the sentence was published, the king, in March, 1839, called him to Berlin to attempt a compromise. When it was found impossible to effect this, the archbishop was sentenced on April 25 to six months imprisonment in a Prussian fortress. The king pardoned him, and again summoned him to Berlin to make propositions for a compromise; but when the archbishop suddenly, without informing the government, left Berlin on October 4, he was re- asserted on October 6, and removed to the fortress of Colberg. There he remained until August 1840, when the new king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, desirous to end the conflict between the State and the Church of Rome, set him at liberty, after Dunin had signed certain declarations. He now instructed his clergy to desist from demanding any promises from persons about to conclude a "mixed" marriage, but also to refrain from anything that might imply an approval of such marriages. Another pastoral letter of February 1842, provided that in the case of persons who, contrary to the provisions of the Church, had concluded a mixed marriage, the priests must, in each individual case, judge by the disposition of the parties whether they might admit them to the sacraments or not. The archbishop died December 26, 1842. (See Prussia). A life of archbishop Dunin was published by F. Pohl (Martin Von Dunin , Marienburg, 1843). The conflict of archbishop Dunin and of archbishop Droste (q.v.), of Cologne, with the Prussian government, is treated of in a special work by the Church historian K. Hase ( Die Beiden Erzbischife , Leips. 1839). Herzog, Real- Encykl . 3:549; Wetzer und Welte, Kirch.-Lex . 3:334.
