Diocese of Hildesheim

Diocese of Hildesheim Dioecesis Hildesiensis Bistum Hildesheim
St. Mary's Cathedral, Hildesheim
Location
Country	Germany
Territory	Hildesheim, Lower Saxony
Ecclesiastical province	Hamburg
Metropolitan	Archdiocese of Hamburg
Statistics
Area	30,000 km2 (12,000 sq mi)
Population - Total - Catholics	(as of 2006) 5,700,000 652,461 (11.4%)
Information
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Rite	Roman Rite
Established	800
Cathedral	St. Mary's Cathedral
Patron saint	St. Godehard Mary, Mother of God
Current leadership
Pope	Francis
Bishop	Norbert Trelle
Metropolitan Archbishop	Sede Vacante
Auxiliary Bishops	Hans-Georg Koitz (emeritus), Nikolaus Schwerdtfeger, Heinz-Gunter Bongartz
Map
Website
bistum-hildesheim.de

The Diocese of Hildesheim (Latin:Dioecesis Hildesiensis) is a diocese or ecclesiastical territory of the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church in Germany. Founded in 815 as a missionary diocese by King Louis the Pious, his son Louis the German appointed the famous former archbishop of Rheims, Ebbo, as bishop.

The Diocese of Hildesheim continues to exist; today, it covers those parts of the State of Lower Saxony that are east of the River Weser, northern neighbourhoods in Bremen, and the city of Bremerhaven. The current bishop is Norbert Trelle who was appointed in 2006. The diocese is a suffragan to the Archdiocese of Hamburg since 1994. Originally Hildesheim was suffragan to Mainz until 1805. Then it was an exempt diocese until 1930, before it was part of the Middle German Ecclesiastical Province with Paderborn Archdiocese as metropolitan between 1930 and 1994.

Between 1235 and 1802, the bishop of Hildesheim was also Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. His Hochstift (feudal princely territory) was the Prince-Bishopric of Hildesheim. In the 16th century, most of the diocese as well as most of the state of Hildesheim switched to protestantism. But the Bishopric managed to retain its independence from the surrounding protestant states of Brunswick-Lüneburg, mostly because its bishops were members of the powerful House of Wittelsbach from 1573 until 1761.