Connections of the Family of the Blessed Bishop Anton Martin Slomšek to the Church: On the 160th Anniversary of the Death of Blessed Anton Martin Slomšek

The paper discusses the ties and relations of the ancestors and relatives of Blessed Bishop Anton Martin Slomšek (1800–1862) to the Church and clergy. The relationships and connections were diverse. Slomšek’s home at Slom in the parish of Ponikva was for centuries subjugated to the ecclesiastical seigneury of Gornji Grad. The future bishop grew up as a subject of the Bishop of Ljubljana, and his home had been in the hands of a priest more than a hundred years before Anton Martin was born. His great-grandfather Štefan Slomšek built the filial church of St. Oswald not far from Slom and had two sons who became priests – Blaž and Primož Leopold Slomšek. Anton Martin’s grandfather Gašper married a woman with a meaningful surname Apat, meaning abbot, and Gašper’s brother Matevž married the niece of the famous parish priest and mathematician Matej Vrečer. The grandfather’s family, which lived in the Šalek Valley, was closely connected with the local clergy. The maternal cousin of the bishop’s father Marko was the priest Jurij Apat from Velenje. The fourth member of the Slomšek family to receive holy orders was one of Gašpers great-grandsons, Janez Slomšek from Družmirje near Šoštanj, who was ordained priest by Bishop Slomšek himself.