Archdiocese of Magdeburg

Archdiocese of Magdeburg

Church province of Magdeburg

Coat of arms of the Archdiocese of Magdeburg based on Siebmacher's coat of arms book from 1605

Announcement of the establishment of an archdiocese of Magdeburg and its transfer to Adalbert , 968.

The Magdeburg Cathedral, cathedral of the Archbishops of Magdeburg

The Archdiocese of Magdeburg (968 until the Reformation) is a lost historical diocese . The territorial possession of the diocese, the Archbishopric of Magdeburg , was converted into the Duchy of Magdeburg in 1648 and subordinated to the Elector of Brandenburg in 1680 .

history

At the Synod of Ravenna in 967, Emperor Otto I obtained the approval of Pope John XIII. for the establishment of Magdeburg as an archbishopric . This decision affected the competences of the Diocese of Halberstadt and the Archdiocese of Mainz . Only after the deaths of Halberstadt Bishop Bernhard von Halberstadt in February 968 and Archbishop Wilhelm of Mainz in March 968 was Otto able to implement the synod's resolution.

The Archdiocese of Magdeburg was created from areas of the Diocese of Halberstadt . The patron saint of the archbishopric was Saint Mauritius . The neighboring dioceses of Brandenburg , Havelberg , Zeitz , Merseburg and Meißen were subordinated to the metropolitan as suffragans . The first archbishop of Magdeburg was the Russian missionary and abbot of Weissenburg , Adalbert , in 968 . In addition to his position as metropolitan of a large church province , the archbishop was also Primate Germaniae . The mighty Magdeburg Cathedral testifies to its importance in the High Middle Ages .

In the 12th century, the archbishops also established sovereignty. From 1476 the archbishopric came increasingly under the influence of Saxony and Brandenburg . In 1478, the Archbishop of Magdeburg, Ernst von Wettin , subjugated the city of Halle . From 1484 he had the Moritzburg built there, which he moved into in May 1503. The Moritzburg became the preferred residence of the Magdeburg archbishops.

During the Reformation , large parts of the archbishopric's population converted to the Lutheran creed. Only in the course of the Thirty Years' War did the archbishopric temporarily get a Catholic archbishop again, but a re-Catholicization of the population in the archbishopric was out of the question.

In the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 the territory of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg , i.e. the secular property of the Archbishop of Magdeburg, was assigned to the Electorate of Brandenburg as the hereditary Duchy of Magdeburg . This provision came into effect after the death of the last administrator, Duke August von Sachsen-Weißenfels in 1680. The diocese of Magdeburg , founded in 1994, sees itself in the tradition of the former archdiocese.

See also

• List of the archbishops and bishops of Magdeburg

swell

• Hermann Michaelis, Eckhart W. Peters (eds.): Magdeburger Bischofschronik. Stekovics, Dößel 2006, ISBN 978-3-89923-132-8 .
• Gustav Hertel (edit.): The oldest loan books of the Magdeburg archbishops (= historical sources of the province of Saxony and neighboring areas. Volume 16). Hendel, Halle 1883 ( digitized version ).
• Friedrich Israel, Walter Möllenberg (edit.): Document book of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg (= historical sources of the Province of Saxony and the Free State of Anhalt. New series. Volume 18). Part 1: 937-1192. Self-published by the State Historical Research Center, Magdeburg 1937.

literature

• Gerd Althoff : The founding of the Archdiocese of Magdeburg. In: Matthias Puhle (Ed.): Otto the Great, Magdeburg and Europe. An exhibition in the Kulturhistorisches Museum Magdeburg from August 27 to December 2, 2001. Volume 1, von Zabern, Mainz 2001, ISBN 3-8053-2616-5 , pp. 344–352.
• Tina Bode: King and Bishop in Ottonian times. Domination practice-scope for action-interactions (= historical studies. Vol. 506). Matthiesen, Husum 2015, ISBN 978-3-7868-1506-8 , pp. 376-401.
• Dietrich Claude : History of the Archdiocese of Magdeburg up to the 12th century. 2 volumes. Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 1972–1975 (also: Marburg, University, habilitation paper, 1969/1970);
  • Volume 1: The history of the archbishops up to Ruotger (1124) (= Central German research. 67, 1). 1972, ISBN 3-412-90072-9 ;
  • Volume 2: History of the Archdiocese of Magdeburg up to the 12th century (= Central German Research. 67, 2). 1975, ISBN 3-412-11375-1 .
• Franz Schrader (Ed.): Contributions to the history of the Archdiocese of Magdeburg (studies on the Catholic diocese and monastery history, vol. 11). Leipzig 1969.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Magdeburg, Landesarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt, Rep. U 1, Tit. I, No. 31 ( MGH DD OI , No. 366, pp. 502-503).
2. ^ ^{A b} Diocese of Magdeburg: Overview of the history and prehistory of the Diocese of Magdeburg from the early Middle Ages to the present day 777–1994 .