BREMEN-HAMBURG, ANCIENT DIOCESE OF. - In the year 780 Charlemagne entrusted to the Anglo-Saxon missionary Willehad the region between the Elbe, the city of Norden and the banks of the lower Weser. Willehad was consecrated bishop of B. in 787; his successors were Willerich and Leuderich; B. was then a suffragan of Cologne. On 1 October 847, in the provincial synod of Mainz, the diocese of B. was united with that of A. and St. Ansgar was its first archbishop; the city of A. had been founded by Charlemagne in the year 811.
The separation of B. from the metropolis of Cologne was the cause of dissensions that ended at the beginning of the 10th century through the intervention of Pope Sergius III. The two Chapters of B. and of A. joined together for the election of the archbishop. B. became a missionary center for the countries of northern Europe; like St. Ansgar before him, Archbishop St. Rimbert made journeys to Denmark and Sweden, and so did Archbishop
Bishop St. Unni, who died in 936 at Birken (Sweden). St. Adaldag erected the suffragan dioceses of Schleswig, of Ribe, of Aarhus in Denmark. The most flourishing missionary period was in the time of Archbishop Adalbert (1043-1073); Pope Paschal II in 1104 separated the Danish dioceses and created the archdiocese of Lund (Sweden). In the 13th century, especially under Archbishop Gerard of Lippe (1219-58), the two dioceses of B. and of A. were enriched with religious communities: Augustinians, Benedictines, Carthusians, Cistercians, Premonstratensians and then Dominicans and Franciscans.
Ancient churches of B.: the collegiate church of St. Willehad, St. Stephen, St. Mary, St. Ansgar with a tower 97 m. high, St. Martin. In A.: St. Peter, St. Nicholas, St. James, St. Catherine. The last archbishop was Christopher of Brunswick, who was unable to oppose the spread of the Lutheran Reformation. Now the territories of B. and of A. depend on the diocese of Osnabrück.
Bibliography5 works
Enrico Josi