DIOCESE OF FREIBURG IN BREISGAU. - It is the metropolis of the suffragan dioceses of Mainz and Rottenburg and covers an area of 16,212 sq km. Of the 2,530,490 inhabitants, 1,545,645 are Catholics. The archdiocese has 1,755 churches with 983 parishes; there are 1,706 secular priests and 331 regulars; in 1945 it had 241 seminarians. In 42 male religious houses live 811 religious; in 1,044 female religious houses live 8,144 religious; there are 188 charitable institutions (1948).
The ecclesiastical province of F. is called the ecclesiastical province of the Upper Rhine and comprises parts of Baden and Hohenzollern.
NOTIZIE STORICHE
The archdiocese was founded in 1821 on the territory of the six dioceses of Constance, Strasbourg, Speyer, Worms, Mainz and Würzburg. The first archbishop was Bernard Roll in 1827. Archbishop Ignaz Demeter (1836-42) showed himself weak in the face of State imperialism and especially in the controversy over mixed marriage. Archbishop Hermann v. Wicari (1843-68) fought against so-called Altkatholizismus. In 1860 State imperialism came to an end, but certain anticlerical laws persisted regarding schools, marriage, and the education of the clergy. In 1876 the simultaneous school (mixed religion school) was introduced, with the direction of religion lessons by the Church. In 1897 the well-known Caritas-Verband was founded in F.
MONASTERIES
At one time the city of F. had 30 monasteries, of which the best known were those of the Hospitallers, the Teutonic Knights and the Franciscans. In the monastery of St. Martin, today the parish house, lived the Franciscan master Berthold Schwarz, the inventor of gunpowder. The Dominicans lived in F. from 1236 until 1794; in 1240 Albertus Magnus (v.) lived and taught here; Battista Giovanni Schwelm, knight and burgomaster of F., founded the charterhouse of Monte S. Giovanni Battista, which was suppressed in 1782 (Cottineau, I, col. 1822). The Jesuits were in F. from 1620 until 1673, with teaching activity at the University. At present in the diocese of F. there are 23 male orders and 15 female ones.
CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS
In F. the Albert Ludwig University was founded in 1437, which currently accommodates 4,000 students. Until 1900 it was the university of the Catholics of Upper Austria, Swabia, Alsace and German-speaking Switzerland.
The archdiocese has in F. the boarding school for theologians, for secondary-school pupils and an institute of the priests of the Sacred Heart, a secondary school of the Ursulines and a girls' school of the Franciscans. In F. is located the central headquarters of the German Caritas-Verband (Verthuanxhaus) with schools, libraries and publishing houses. The archdiocese also possesses an archbishop's missionary institute.
MONUMENTS
Among the numerous medieval buildings that existed in F. up to the period of the war of 1939-45, the most delightful is the cathedral of Our Lady, that is, the only cathedral in Gothic style in Germany that was completed as early as the Middle Ages. Its tower is the most beautiful and also the earliest of the Gothic period, and this thanks to the happy upward development of the octagonal tower and to its lacework, the work of H. Holbrin, innior. Also very famous is the painting of the high altar by Baldung Grien of 1512-16.
Also well known are the churches of St. Martin, of 1490, with the monument by Bertoldo Schwarz, the Baroque church of the University, also called the Jesuit church, built from 1685 to 1701, and the chapel of St. Michael in the old cemetery with the well-known diptychs of the Danse macabre of 1800. Among the secular buildings are to be remembered the market, in early Gothic and Renaissance style, built from 1525 to 1532, and the old and modern town hall, both built between 1543 and 1582.