The Archbishop of Mechelen was historically
primate of the whole of the
Low Countries following the 1559 reorganisation creating fifteen dioceses. Over time, the two other ecclesiastical provinces broke from Mechelen's primacy.
Cambrai was already in France and its kings managed gradually to annex southern French Flanders, and
Utrecht and its suffragans in the Dutch republic (later kingdom) would long have their hierarchy suspended because the northern state broke away to be the champion of "anti-papist" Calvinism. The Napoleonic 1801 concordat re-drew the whole map again. The country, by tradition, has the Archbishop of Mechelen made a cardinal. The Archdiocese of Mechelen was renamed the Archdiocese of Mechelen–Brussels on 8 December 1961 as part of a restructuring of the Catholic dioceses in Belgium. Two new dioceses were created. On the same day, the
Diocese of Antwerp was created from areas previously administered by the Archdiocese of Mechelen. Six years later the
Diocese of Hasselt was also created. This meant that the new dioceses largely corresponding to the
provinces of Belgium. Most of the Catholic Church's presence in the
Province of Antwerp (except in the municipality of Mechelen) was made into the
Diocese of Antwerp. Archbishop André-Joseph Leonard succeeded Cardinal Danneels in January 2010. On 22 February 2011,
Pope Benedict XVI appointed Fr.
Jean Kockerols, Fr.
Jean-Luc Hudsyn, and Fr.
Leon Lemmens as
auxiliary bishops of the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels. Upon reaching 75 years Leonard tendered his resignation, which was accepted. In the autumn of 2015 Pope Francis appointed the bishop of Bruges, Jozef De Kesel, as the new archbishop, who was created Cardinal in 2016. De Kesel was succeeded on 3 September 2023 by
Luc Terlinden. ==Heraldry==