Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Paderborn

Archdiocese of Paderborn
Archidioecesis Paderbornensis
Erzbistum Paderborn

Paderborn Cathedral
Location
Country Germany
Territory Paderborn, North Rhine-Westphalia
Ecclesiastical province Paderborn
Statistics
Area 14,754 km2 (5,697 sq mi)
Population
- Total
- Catholics
(as of 2004)
4,900,000
1,757,474 (35.9%)
Information
Denomination Roman Catholic
Rite Roman Rite
Established 799
Cathedral Paderborn Cathedral
Patron saint St. Kilian
St. Liborius
Current leadership
Pope Francis
Archbishop Hans-Josef Becker
Archbishop of Paderborn
Auxiliary Bishops Hubert Berenbrinker, Manfred Grothe, Matthias König
Map
Website
erzbistum-paderborn.de

The Archdiocese of Paderborn is an Archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany; its seat is Paderborn. It was a diocese from its foundation in 799 until 1802, and again from 1821 until 1930. In 1930, it was promoted to an archdiocese. From 1281 until 1802, the Bishopric of Paderborn (German: Fürstbistum Paderborn) was also a state of the Holy Roman Empire.

History

The diocese of Paderborn was founded in 799 by Pope Leo III. In the early years it was subordinated to the bishop of Würzburg. Since 855 the clergy had the right to elect the bishop. The diocese included the larger part of Lippe, Waldeck, and nearly half of the County of Ravensberg.

Restoration and later history

While the bishopric as a state had been permanently dissolved in 1802, the Diocese of Paderborn, originally suffragan to Mainz Archdiocese (till 1805), was recreated by Pope Pius VII as a suffragan to Cologne Archdiocese in 1821. Through the Prussian Concordate, it was promoted to an archdiocese in 1930, heading the new Middle German Ecclesiastical Province; at the same time, Paderborn lost its districts around Erfurt and Heiligenstadt to the Diocese of Fulda, and two small areas to the Archdiocese of Cologne. The dioceses of Hildesheim and Fulda were made its suffragans.

When the Diocese of Essen was created in 1958, Paderborn lost a significant portion of its district to it.

In the 1980s the Campingkirche was founded.

In 1994 Paderborn lost the part of its district located in the former East Germany to its newly created suffragan Diocese of Magdeburg. Also the new Diocese of Erfurt was made subordinate to Paderborn. At the same time, Hildesheim was made subordinate to the Archdiocese of Hamburg.

In the 1990s, the conflict between the Archdiocese and renegade priest Eugen Drewermann made headlines.

The current archbishop is Hans-Josef Becker.

In April 2008 pope Benedict XVI. announced Hubert Berenbrinker as a new auxiliary bishop.

Ordinaries

Structure

The archdiocese is allocated in 19 districts (Dekanate).[1]

References

  1. Erzbistum Paderborn - Aus den Dekanaten

External links