FRIBURG IN BREISGAU, DIOCESE OF. — It is the metropolitan see of the suffragan dioceses of Mainz and Rotterdam and covers an area of 16,212 sq. km. Of the 2,530,490 inhabitants, 1,545,645 are Catholic. The archdiocese has 1,755 churches with 983 parishes; there are 1,706 secular priests and 331 regular clergy; in 1945 it had 241 seminarians. In 42 male religious houses there are 811 religious; in 1,044 female religious houses there are 814 religious; there are 168 charitable institutions (1948).
The ecclesiastical province of F. is called the Upper Rhenish ecclesiastical province and includes parts of Baden and Hohenzollern.
HISTORICAL NOTES. — 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) proved weak in the face of state imperialism, especially in the controversy over mixed marriages. Archbishop Hermann von Vicari (1843–68) fought against the so-called Old Catholic movement. In 1860 state imperialism came to an end, but some anticlerical laws regarding schools, marriage, and clerical education remained in force. In 1876 the simultaneous school system (mixed-religion schools) was introduced, with religious instruction directed by the Church. In 1897 the well-known Caritas-Verband was founded in F.
MONASTERIES. — In former times the city of F. had 30 monasteries, the best known of which were those of the Johannites, the Teutonic Knights, and the Franciscans. In the monastery of St Martin, now a parish house, lived the Franconian-Swabian master Berthold Schwarz, inventor of gunpowder. The Dominicans were in F. from 1236 to 1794; Albert the Great (v.) lived and taught there in 1240. Johann Baptist Schwelin, knight and burgomaster of F., founded the circle of Mount St John the Baptist, which was suppressed in 1782 (Cattineau, I, col. 1222). The Jesuits were in F. from 1620 to 1673, engaged in teaching at the university. At present there are 23 male and 15 female religious orders in the diocese of F.
CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS. — The University of Freiburg, founded in 1457, currently has 400 students. Until 1900 it was the university of Catholics from Upper Austria, Sweden, Ukraine, and German-speaking Switzerland.
The archdiocese has in F. a seminary for theologians, a gymnasium, an institute of priests of the Sacred Heart, a secondary school run by the Ursulines, and a girls’ school run by the Franciscans. In F. is the central headquarters of the German Caritas-Verband (Werthmannhaus), with schools, libraries, and publishing houses. The archdiocese also owns an archiepiscopal missionary institute.
MONUMENTS. — Among the numerous medieval buildings that existed in F. until the war of 1939–45, the most delightful is the cathedral of Our Lady, the only Gothic cathedral in Germany completed in the Middle Ages. Its tower is the most beautiful and also the first of the Gothic period, thanks to the fortunate upward development of the square tower and its crenellations, a work by H. Holbein the Younger. Also well known is the high altar painting by Baldung Grien, dating from 1512–16.
Also notable are the church of St Martin (1490), with the monument to Berthold Schwarz; the Baroque university church, also called the Jesuit church, built from 1683 to 1701; and the chapel of St Michael in the old cemetery, with the famous Dance of Death paintings from 1800. Among secular buildings are to be noted the market hall, in late Gothic and Renaissance style, built from 1525 to 1522, and the old and new town halls, both built between 1543 and 1582.