Diocese of Aarhus

Diocese of Aarhus Århus Stift
The Cathedral of the diocese.
Location
Country	Denmark
Information
Denomination	Church of Denmark
Sui iuris church	Latin Church
Cathedral	Saint Clement Cathedral of Aarhus
Current leadership
Bishop	Henrik Wigh-Poulsen

The Diocese of Aarhus (Danish: Århus Stift) is one of 10 diocese in the Church of Denmark, with headquarters in the city of Aarhus. The diocese covers a large district of northeast Jutland and comprise 14 deaneries, of which four cover the extent of Aarhus city itself.

The diocese dates back to 948, when Adam of Bremen noted that Reginbrand, bishop of Aarhus, attended the synod of Ingelheim in Germany. It is not known if the diocese was established earlier or to what extent it functioned in Aarhus. Christianity still only enjoyed a tentative position in Denmark at the time and it is likely the diocese was created in part for missionary purposes and n part to demonstrate for the pope that the Archbishopric of Bremen was successfully converting the peoples in Scandinavia. In 988 Reginbrand died and the diocese was abolished when all dioceses in Jutland were merged to one unit with Viborg or Ribe at its center. The diocese, then a suffragan of Hamburg-Bremen, was redivided in 1060, and Christian was ordained by Adalbert I, Archbishop of Hamburg. In 1104 the diocese became a suffragan of the then newly elevated Archdiocese of Lund.

In 1537 Denmark and Norway went through a Protestant reform resulting in the arrest of catholic bishops and their replacement by Lutheran clerics. In Aarhus Mads Lang was appointed bishop in 1537. Officially the row of bishops continued from the original Catholic See. The last Catholic bishop, Ove Bille resisted the Reformation, aided by Poul Helgesen, prior of the Carmelite monastery at Elsinore. Ove Bille was imprisoned for this in 1536.