The Diocese of Fulda () is a

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diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...

of the

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in the north of the German state of Hessen. It is a

suffragan diocese A suffragan diocese is one of the dioceses other than the metropolitan archdiocese that constitute an ecclesiastical province. It exists in some Christian denominations, in particular the Catholic Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandr ...

of the Archdiocese of Paderborn. The

bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

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is in

Fulda Cathedral Fulda Cathedral (, also ''Sankt Salvator'') is the former abbey church of Fulda Abbey and the burial place of Saint Boniface. Since 1752 it has also been the cathedral of the Diocese of Fulda, of which the Prince-Abbots of Fulda were created bisho ...

History

The history of the Diocese of Fulda goes back to the founding of a

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...

Saint Boniface Boniface, OSB (born Wynfreth; 675 –5 June 754) was an English Benedictines, Benedictine monk and leading figure in the Anglo-Saxon mission to the Germanic parts of Francia during the eighth century. He organised significant foundations of ...

in 744. Boniface named Saint Sturm the

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...

of the monastery. On 4 November 751,

Pope Zachary Pope Zachary (; 679 – March 752) was the bishop of Rome from 28 November 741 to his death in March 752. He was the last pope of the Byzantine Papacy. Zachary built the original church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, forbade the traffic of sla ...

decreed that the monastery would not be under the control of any diocese but rather directly under the

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

. This special relationship with Rome is illustrated still today in the statue of

Saint Peter Saint Peter (born Shimon Bar Yonah; 1 BC – AD 64/68), also known as Peter the Apostle, Simon Peter, Simeon, Simon, or Cephas, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus and one of the first leaders of the Jewish Christian#Jerusalem ekklēsia, e ...

that stands in the Cathedral. Because Boniface's expressly requested that his body be taken to Fulda after his death (rather than to

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

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), the area became a popular destination for

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s. Boniface, along with Sturm, were named the patron saints of the monastery and later of the diocese. Through gifts and donations, the monastery's influence grew ever stronger in the following centuries. Under Rabanus Maurus in the 9th century, the monastery became the scientific center of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

. In 1220, the abbey was elevated to an abbey-principality by Frederick II. In 1571, Jesuits settled in Fulda and made a considerable contribution to the efforts of the

Counter-Reformation The Counter-Reformation (), also sometimes called the Catholic Revival, was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to, and as an alternative to or from similar insights as, the Protestant Reformations at the time. It w ...

. During the reign of Prince-abbot Balthasar von Dernbach (1570-1576 and 1602-1606), the region was the site of extensive

witch-hunt A witch hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. Practicing evil spells or Incantation, incantations was proscribed and punishable in early human civilizations in the ...

s with 300 witch-trials carried out in three years. This number made Fulda one of the central areas of the early-modern European witch-hunts. On 5 October 1752, Pope Benedict XIV raised the abbey to the level of a diocese. In 1802, with the German mediatisation, the political principality of the diocese was dissolved, but the diocese itself remained. Prince-Bishop Adalbert von Harstall remained the bishop of the diocese until his death in 1814. After his death the diocese was overseen by an administrator rather than a bishop. The borders of the diocese were altered by

papal bull A papal bull is a type of public decree, letters patent, or charter issued by the pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the leaden Seal (emblem), seal (''bulla (seal), bulla'') traditionally appended to authenticate it. History Papal ...

s in 1821 and 1827. In 1857, the diocese was expanded to include the grand duchy of Saxe-Weimar. From 1873 to 1881, during the Kulturkampf, when Chancellor

Otto von Bismarck Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (; born ''Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck''; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898) was a German statesman and diplomat who oversaw the unification of Germany and served as ...

attempted to lessen the political power of the church, the bishop's seat sat empty again. In 1929, the diocese lost some regions in the area of

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

to the diocese of Limburg, receiving the predominant Catholic commissariat in Heiligenstadt and the

deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residence of ...

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital (political), capital and largest city of the Central Germany (cultural area), Central German state of Thuringia, with a population of around 216,000. It lies in the wide valley of the Gera (river), River Gera, in the so ...

from the diocese of Paderborn, itself elevated to archdiocese. The Diocese of Fulda then switched as

suffragan A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations. In the Catholic Church, a suffragan bishop leads a diocese within an ecclesiastical province other than the principal diocese, the metropolitan archdiocese; the diocese led ...

from the Upper Rhenish Ecclesiastical Province to the new Paderbon-led Middle German Ecclesiastical Province. During the partition of Germany after

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, it became much more difficult for the Bishop of Fulda, as well as the Bishop of Würzburg, to conduct the business of his office in the parts of his diocese which lay in the eastern zone. Therefore, 1946 saw the appointment of the provost of the Erfurt Cathedral to the position of

vicar general A vicar general (previously, archdeacon) is the principal deputy of the bishop or archbishop of a diocese or an archdiocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vica ...

of the eastern sections of both the Fuldean and Würzburger diocese. In 1953, he was made

auxiliary bishop An auxiliary bishop is a bishop assigned to assist the diocesan bishop in meeting the pastoral and administrative needs of the diocese. Auxiliary bishops can also be titular bishops of sees that no longer exist as territorial jurisdictions. ...

of the region. With the reordering of the Catholic Church in

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, in 1973, by decree of the

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, the East German regions of both diocese were reassigned to the Episcopal Office of Erfurt-Meiningen (). The leader of the Episcopal Office was an

apostolic administrator An apostolic administration in the Catholic Church is administrated by a prelate appointed by the pope to serve as the ordinary for a specific area. Either the area is not yet a diocese (a stable 'pre-diocesan', usually missionary apostolic admi ...

and

titular bishop A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese. By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox an ...

. After an agreement between the Holy See and the German state of

Thuringia Thuringia (; officially the Free State of Thuringia, ) is one of Germany, Germany's 16 States of Germany, states. With 2.1 million people, it is 12th-largest by population, and with 16,171 square kilometers, it is 11th-largest in area. Er ...

, regarding the formation of the diocese of Erfurt on 14 June 1994, on 8 July, the Episcopal Office was made a diocese in itself by

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. Only the deanery of Geisa in the Thuringian Rhön Mountains was returned to the diocese of Fulda, by virtue of their very close historical connection. One peculiarity is the

curate A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' () of souls of a parish. In this sense, ''curate'' means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy who are as ...

of Ostheim, which according to church law as a historical part of Thuringia still belongs to the diocese of Fulda but, since 1945, has been administered by the diocese of Würzburg.

Patron saints of the diocese

*Saint Boniface (main patron) *Saint Elisabeth of Hungary (secondary patron) *Saint Bardo *Saint Leoba *Saint Rabanus Maurus *Saint Sturm

Ordinaries

For a list of medieval abbots see Rulers of Fulda until Secularization #Amand von Buseck, O.S.B. (1738–1756) #Adalbert von Walderdorf, O.S.B. (1757–1759) # Heinrich von Bibra, O.S.B. (1759–1788) #Adalbert Freiherr (Wilhelm Adolph Heinrich) von Harstall, O.S.B. (1788–1814) #*Heinrich Freiherr (Philipp Ernst) von Warnsdorf, O.S.B. (1814–1817), vicar apostolic # Johann Adam Rieger (1828–1831) # Johann Leonhard Pfaff (1831–1848) # Christoph Florentius Kött (1848–1873) # Georg von Kopp (1881–1887) # Joseph Weyland (1887–1894) # Georg Ignatz Komp (1894–1898) #Adalbert Endert (1898–1906) #Joseph Damian Schmitt (1906–1939) #Johann Baptist Dietz (1939–1958) #Adolf Bolte (1959–1974) # Eduard Schick (1974–1982) #Johannes Dyba (1983–2000) # Heinz Josef Algermissen (2001–2018) #Michael Gerber (from 2019)

References

External links

Homepage of the diocese (German)
{{Authority control

Fulda Fulda () (historically in English called Fuld) is a city in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the river Fulda and is the administrative seat of the Fulda district (''Kreis''). In 1990, the city hosted the 30th Hessentag state festival. Histor ...

1752 establishments in the Holy Roman Empire Roman Catholic dioceses in the Holy Roman Empire

Diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...

* Fulda Cathedral