Bishopric of Ratzeburg
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The Bishopric of Ratzeburg (German: Bistum Ratzeburg), centered on Ratzeburg in northern Germany, was a bishopric suffragan to the Archbishopric of Hamburg.
Ratzeburg was one of the dioceses formed ca. 1050 by Archbishop Adalbert of Hamburg, who appointed St. Aristo, who had just returned from Jerusalem, to the new see. Aristo seems to have been but a wandering missionary bishop. In 1066, the pagan Wends rose against their German masters, and on 15 July 1066, St. Ansverus, Abbot of St. George's, Ratzeburg (not the later monastery bearing that name), and several of his monks are said to have been stoned to death. It was not until 1154, however, that Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, and Hartwich, Archbishop of Hamburg, refounded the episcopal see of Ratzeburg, and Evermodus became its first bishop. A disciple of St Norbert and provost of the Monastery of Our Lady at Magdeburg, Evermodus was, like many of his successors, a Premonstratensian canon. In 1157, a chapter was attached to Ratzeburg cathedral by Pope Adrian IV.
In 1236 Bishop Peter was invested by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, with temporal jurisdiction over the land of Butin and a number of villages outside it (the Principality of Ratzeburg), making the see a prince-bishopric. The succeeding bishops retained this jurisdiction in spite of the frequent attempts which the dukes of Saxe-Lauenburg made to deprive them of it.
The cathedral of Ratzeburg dates from the beginning of the 12th century. It was restored, and additions were made to it in the 15th century. The diocese also contained a number of other beautiful churches at Mölln, Wismar, Büchen and elsewhere.
Besides the cathedral chapter of Ratzeburg with its provost or dean and twelve canons, there were in the diocese the Benedictine Abbeys of St. George, Ratzeburg (refounded in 1093), and of Wismar, where Benedictines expelled from Lübeck founded a monastery in 1239; also convents of the same order at Eldena founded in 1229, by Bishop Gottschalk of Ratzeburg, and burnt in 1290, at Rehna founded in 1237 by Bishop Ludolfus, and at Zarrentin founded in 1243. There were also Franciscans (1251) and Dominicans (1293) at Wismar.
In 1504, during the episcopate of Bishop Johann V von Parkentin, the Premonstratensian regular canons of Ratzeburg cathedral were, with papal consent, made secular canons.
Bishop Georg von Blumenthal (1524–50), who feuded with Thomas Aderpul, was the last Roman Catholic bishop. In 1552, the cathedral was plundered by Count Volrad von Mansfeld. In 1554, the dean and chapter converted to Lutheranism. The bishopric was then secularized during the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, becoming the Principality of Ratzeburg under the control of the Dukes of Mecklenburg. In 1701 the principality became an exclave of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the diocese's historical territory in the German Empire corresponded to the Duchy of Lauenburg (in Schleswig-Holstein, the bishop's own Principality of Ratzeburg in the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and the western part of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, including Wismar but not Schwerin. The whole of it was later included in the Diocese of Osnabrück.
[edit] Sources
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
[edit] External links
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