page_title: Christoph Schönborn
section_title: Family and early life
hierarchical_section_title: Christoph Schönborn / Family and early life
caption_attribution_description: Čeština: Pohled od Sutomi na zámek a věž hradu Skalka ve Vlastislavi. V pozadí uprostřed vrch Plešivec a o něco dále vpravo vrch Oltářík (Hrádek) se zříceninou hradu. Deutsch: Burg Skalka English: České středohoří, Czech Republic. A view from Sutom over Skalka Castle in Vlastislav towards WSW with hills of Plešivec (centre) and Oltářík (right) in the background.
context_page_description: Christoph Maria Michael Hugo Damian Peter Adalbert Graf von Schönborn, O.P., is a Bohemian-born Austrian Dominican friar and theologian, who is a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He serves as the Archbishop of Vienna and was the Chairman of the Austrian Bishops' Conference from 1998–2020. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1998. He is also Grand Chaplain of the Order of the Golden Fleece, of which he has been a member since 1961. He is a member of the formerly sovereign princely House of Schönborn, several members of which held high offices of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church as prince-bishops, prince-electors and cardinals.
context_section_description: Schönborn was born at Skalka Castle, west of Litoměřice in Bohemia (then Czechoslovakia, now part of the Czech Republic), the second son of Maria Hugo Damian Adalbert Josef Hubertus, Graf von Schönborn, and Baroness Eleonore Ottilie Hilda Maria von Doblhoff. He is a member of the princely House of Schönborn whose members bore before 1918 the title of Count and the style of Illustrious Highness. Several members of the Schönborn family held high offices in the Catholic Church and, since the 17th century, the Holy Roman Empire, including several prince-bishops, cardinals and ecclesiastical prince-electors. One ancestor was Franziskus von Paula Graf von Schönborn, cardinal-archbishop of Prague. When aristocratic titles were abolished in the First Czechoslovak Republic, after its independence in 1918, just as in Austria, his father officially lost his title of count, although titles continue to be used privately.
  During the war, his father Hugo Damian was involved in the anti-Nazi resistance. Following the German withdrawal from Czechoslovakia at the end of World War II, Bohemia's German-speaking population, especially the nobility, was persecuted by the new rulers, first by Edvard Beneš' post-war nationalist government and then by the new Stalinist regime, and the family fled to Austria when Christoph Schönborn was nine months old. His parents divorced in 1959. He has two brothers and one sister; his brother Michael Schönborn is an actor. He grew up in Schruns in western Austria, close to the border of the Swiss canton of Graubünden. Nevertheless, he has said that Bohemia is his home. Parts of his family live in France.
  Growing up in Vorarlberg, Schönborn speaks the Vorarlberg dialect as well as Swiss German in addition to Standard German. In addition to his native German, Schönborn is fluent in French and Italian, and proficient in English, Spanish and Latin. He also speaks Czech. He lived for several years in France and French-speaking Switzerland, and speaks French at a near-native level.
caption: His birthplace and ancestral castle, Skalka Castle in modern Vlastislav
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 350D DIGITAL", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2008:05:01 11:58:09", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "8", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0xA58F": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x87BD": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0xA74D": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x3B0B": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x6E0C": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x54D6": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x9023": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0xE693": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x956F": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x8600": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x8E89": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x5DB1": "", "Thumbnail Tag 0xB3AB": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x86D2": "", "Thumbnail Tag 0x95A2": "[]", "Thumbnail Tag 0x9741": "[]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "11", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:05:01 11:58:09", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:05:01 11:58:09", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "261023/32768", "EXIF ApertureValue": "453435/65536", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "66", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3456", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2304", "Interoperability Tag 0x829A": "1/250", "Interoperability Tag 0x829D": "11", "Interoperability Tag 0x8827": "400", "Interoperability Tag 0x9000": "[48, 50, 50, 49]", "Interoperability Tag 0x9003": "2008:05:01 11:58:09", "Interoperability Tag 0x9004": "2008:05:01 11:58:09", "Interoperability Tag 0x9101": "[1, 2, 3, 0]", "Interoperability Tag 0x9201": "261023/32768", "Interoperability Tag 0x9202": "453435/65536", "Interoperability Tag 0x9204": "0", "Interoperability Tag 0x9209": "16", "Interoperability Tag 0x920A": "66", "Interoperability Tag 0xA000": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability Tag 0xA001": "1", "Interoperability Tag 0xA002": "3456", "Interoperability Tag 0xA003": "2304", "Interoperability Tag 0xA005": "8", "Interoperability Tag 0xA20E": "1728000/437", "Interoperability Tag 0xA20F": "384000/97", "Interoperability Tag 0xA210": "2", "Interoperability Tag 0xA401": "1", "Interoperability Tag 0xA402": "0", "Interoperability Tag 0xA403": "0", "Interoperability Tag 0xA406": "0", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "8", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1728000/437", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "384000/97", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}