Diocese of Magdeburg Dioecesis Magdeburgensis |
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Cathedral of St. Sebastian, Magdeburg
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Location | |
Country | Germany |
Territory | Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt |
Ecclesiastical province | Paderborn |
Metropolitan | Archdiocese of Paderborn |
Statistics | |
Area | 23,000 km2 (8,900 sq mi) |
Population - Total - Catholics |
(as of 2004) 2,723,000 120,000 (4.4%) |
Information | |
Denomination | Roman Catholic |
Rite | Roman Rite |
Established | 27 June 1994 |
Cathedral | Cathedral of St. Sebastian |
Patron saint | St. Norbert of Xanten |
Current leadership | |
Pope | Francis |
Bishop |
Gerhard Feige Bishop of Magdeburg |
Metropolitan Archbishop |
Hans-Josef Becker Archbishop of Paderborn |
Emeritus Bishops | Leopold Nowak |
Map | |
Website | |
bistum-magdeburg.de |
The Diocese of Magdeburg is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic church, located in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Its seat is Magdeburg; it is suffragan to the Archdiocese of Paderborn.
The Diocese was erected out of Paderborn territories in 1994. Its history dates back to the medieval Archbishopric of Magdeburg established in 968 AD.
At the 967 synod of Ravenna, Emperor Otto I obtained the consent of Pope John XIII to elevate Magdeburg to the see of an archbishop. The next year, against the valiant resistance by the Archbishop of Mainz and the Halberstadt bishop, Otto created the new archbishopric dedicated to Saint Maurice. It then headed an ecclesiastical province comprising the dioceses of Brandenburg, Havelberg, Zeitz, Merseburg, and Meissen, all located in the Saxon Eastern March. The first metropolitan was Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg (c. 910 - 981), a missionary to the Polabian Slavs, who also held the title of Primas Germaniae.