November 26, 1800 – Anton Martin Slomšek, a Slovenian Roman Catholic priest, bishop, writer, poet, educator and blessed, was born in Slom in Uniše pri Ponikvi near Grobelno.
Appointed Abbot of Celje 170 years ago, on April 25, 1846, and then Bishop of Lavantina on May 30. Died in Maribor on September 24, 1862.
Slomšek Anton (as a bishop by his baptismal and christened name Anton Martin), poet, religious and educational writer, national revivalist and church organizer, born on November 26, 1800 in Slom in Uniše pri Ponikvi near Grobelno to a solid farmer, miller Marko and Marija née Zorko.
After primary education in Ponikva, he attended the 3rd grade of the main school in Celje in 1814 and the gymnasium in 1814/19, the winter philosophy course in 1819/20 in Ljubljana, the summer course in 1820 in Senj and 1820/21 in Klagenfurt, where he also completed theology (consecrated on 8 September 1824). He served as a chaplain from September 1825 to April 1827 in Bizeljsko (St. Lawrence in the Land) and until October 1829 in Nova Cerkva, as a spiritual director until October 1838 in the seminary in Klagenfurt, as an archpriest and dean until October 1844 in Vuzenica and as a canon and senior school supervisor until April 1846 in Št. Andraž in Carinthia. On 25 April 1846, he took over the Celje city parish as abbot, but on 30 May, the Archbishop of Salzburg, Cardinal Friedrich Prince Schwarzenberg, appointed him Bishop of Lavantine and consecrated him in Salzburg on 5 July. After the demarcation of the dioceses in 1859, Slomšek moved from Št. Andraž to the new seat of the Lavantine diocese in Maribor, where he was enthroned on 4 September.
Out of his enthusiasm for Slovenian, he founded a Slovenian society while studying theology, taught seminarians in Slovenian and inspired them to do written and spoken exercises, and as a spiritual director at the Klagenfurt seminary, he encouraged them to translate and recruited them to collaborate on his books. He also spoke about his love for his mother tongue in sermons, and spread Slovenian thought in books. He also worked hard for a Slovenian school in the countryside. As a bishop, he campaigned for a long time for Slovenian to be a Styrian church unit (at that time, the Celje district belonged to the Lavantine diocese, and other places to the Sekov diocese).
In the thirties, the biggest obstacle to Slovene literary efforts, apart from censorship, was the lack of publishers and printers willing to invest or take risks in Slovene books. Therefore, in 1835, Slomšek tried to establish a self-publishing house for religious and school books. Due to the increasing number of readers (due to Sunday schools), the need for adequate reading in Slomšek rekindled a long-standing plan to establish a public law society for publishing good, inexpensive Slovene books for the people. In 1851, it was precisely with Slomšek's encouragement and assistance that the Society of Cyril and Methodius was founded, as the Mohorjeva družba publishing house was initially called. The large public book publishing house began operating in 1852. Its books penetrated all layers of the Slovene people and raised the Slovene nation to a high cultural level.
He died on September 24, 1862 in Maribor.
Anton Martin Slomšek was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 19 September 1999. He also set the anniversary of his death as 24 September. The process of canonization is still ongoing, led by the Postulation of the Process for Slomšek's Canonization within the Roman Catholic Church.
The following online sources were used to prepare the article, which contain even more information about his life and work:
http://www.slovenska-biografija.si/oseba/sbi584693/
https://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Martin_Slom%C5%A1ek#.C5.BDivljenje
In the Digital Library of Slovenia (www.dlib.si) 25 bibliographic book units, authored by Anton Martin Slomšek, are available. The Celje Central Library contributed 11 units as part of regional digitization projects
Access: http://www.dlib.si/results/?query=%27keywords%3dantona+martin+slom%C5%A1ek%27&pageSize=25&ftype=knjige