Church Province of Cologne
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Basic data | |
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Country | Germany |
Metropolitan bishopric | Archdiocese of Cologne |
Suffragan dioceses |
Aachen Essen Limburg Minster Trier |
Metropolitan | Rainer Maria Cardinal Woelki |
surface | 46,315 km² |
Parishes | 3,334 |
Residents | 19,190,882 |
Catholics | 8,630,898 |
proportion of | 45% |
Diocesan priest | 4,348 |
Religious priest | 1,503 |
Catholics per priest | 1,475 |
Permanent deacons | 878 |
Friars | 1,877 |
Religious sisters | 9,899 |
The ecclesiastical province of Cologne , also known as the Rhenish ecclesiastical province , is an ecclesiastical province of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany . Metropolitan and Archbishop is Rainer Maria Cardinal Woelki .
geography
The current ecclesiastical province extends over large areas of western Germany . It includes the western regions of North Rhine-Westphalia , northern and western regions of Rhineland-Palatinate , almost the entire Saarland , western regions of Hesse and, with the official district of Oldenburg , which belongs to the diocese of Münster , the Oldenburger Land in Lower Saxony .
Outline and history
Structure of the ecclesiastical province on the eve of the Reformation :
Structure of the ecclesiastical province between the ecclesiastical reorganization of the Spanish Netherlands and the end of the Holy Roman Empire :
- Archdiocese of Cologne
- Diocese of Liège
- Diocese of Münster
- Diocese of Osnabrück
The ecclesiastical province of Cologne, which had existed since 1802 and was dissolved and secularized on the left bank of the Rhine by Napoleon after the Treaty of Lunéville , learned of the circumscription bull issued by Pope Pius VII for the Kingdom of Prussia on July 16, 1821 , in the course of the re-registration of the Catholic dioceses in Germany after the Congress of Vienna De salute animarum a fundamental reconstruction:
- Archdiocese of Cologne
- Diocese of Münster
- Diocese of Paderborn
- Diocese of Trier
In 1956, negotiations between the Vatican and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia led to a contract for the establishment of the diocese of Essen, which became part of the ecclesiastical province of Cologne. With the establishment of the Archdiocese of Hamburg under Pope John Paul II with the Apostolic Constitution Omnium Christifidelium of October 24, 1994, the Diocese of Osnabrück was separated from the ecclesiastical province of Cologne and is now part of the ecclesiastical province of Hamburg .
This is what the current structure of the ecclesiastical province looks like:
- Archdiocese of Cologne
- Diocese of Aachen
- Diocese of Essen
- Diocese of Limburg
- Diocese of Münster
- Diocese of Trier
Metropolitans
- List of the bishops (from 795 metropolitans) of Cologne
- Current Archbishop: Rainer Maria Cardinal Woelki