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The Most Reverend Bruno Bernard Heim, JCD, PhD.

Bruno Bernard Heim, JCD, PhD (5 March 1911 - 18 March 2003) was the Vatican's first Apostolic Nuncio to Britain and was one of the most prominent armorists of twentieth century ecclesiastical heraldry.

Bruno Bernard Heim was born in Olten, Switzerland on 5 March 1911, the son of a stationmaster and his wife, Bernard and Elisabeth Heim-Studer. His artistic talent was evident at an early age. He was introduced to heraldry at the age of 16 when a college professor persuaded him to illustrate a book the professor was writing. Thus began a lifelong interest in the subject.

In 1934 Heim gained a doctorate in Philosophy at the Pontifico Collegio Internazionale Angelicum in Rome, and went on to study theology in Rome, at Freiburg University and at Solothurn, Switzerland.

After ordination in 1938 he worked as a curate in two Swiss parishes. In 1942 he returned to Rome to study at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, later returning to Switzerland to take charge of all Polish and Italian military internees who had sought refuge there. Back in Rome in 1946 he gained a doctorate in Canon law at the Gregorian University.

Heim's diplomatic career began in January 1947, when he was dispatched to the Nunciature in Paris to become personal secretary to Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII. During Heim's four-year stay in Paris, the two of them laid the foundations for a renaissance of heraldry in the Roman Catholic Church.

Roncalli's influence coupled with Heim's artistic talent led to the purging of many unsuitable and unattractive armorial bearings, from the Curia in Rome to dioceses throughout Europe. Heim then went to the Nunciature in Vienna, as Counsellor. However he maintained close contact with Roncalli, who commissioned him to design his new coat of arms as Patriarch of Venice.

He retired as Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to the Court of St James in 1985.

Archbishop Heim served as patron of Cambridge University Heraldic and Genealogical Society from 1980 until his passing in 2003 at the age of 92. He was also Grand Prior of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George.[1][2]

• Heim, Bruno Bernard. Wappenbrauch und Wappenrecht in der Kirche. Walter AG, Olten 1947.
• Heim, Bruno Bernard. Coutumes et Droit Héraldiques de l'Eglise. Beauchesne, Paris 1949.
• Heim, Bruno Bernard. Armorial: Armorial Liber Amicorum. Gerrards Cross, UK: Van Duren, 1981, (ISBN 0-905715-16-0).
• Heim, Bruno Bernard. Heraldry in the Catholic Church: Its Origins, Customs, and Laws, New Jersey: Humanities Press Inc, 1978 (ISBN 0-391-00873-0).
• Heim, Bruno Bernard. Or and Argent, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, England, UK, Van Duren, 1994, (ISBN 0-905715-24-1).

• Urban Fink: Bruno Heim in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.