FULDA, DIOCESI of. — In Germany, suffragan of Paderborn, it has an area of 19,958 sq. km., 3,603,800 inhabitants, of whom 838,580 are Catholics, 465 churches, 284 parishes, 394 diocesan priests, 97 religious priests, 144 seminarians, 16 religious houses for men with 121 professed members, 16 religious houses for women with 2,072 professed members, and 315 institutions of assistance with 8,900 residents (1948).
On 12 March 744 Sturmo (abbot 744–79), at the request of his teacher St. Boniface (v.) founded a monastery at F. which was richly endowed by Carlomanno, mayor of the palace of the Franks. Pope Zaccaria (741–52) granted it exemption from every episcopal authority. After the death of St. Boniface (754), who was buried there, the monastery developed rapidly, and a great basilica replaced the primitive church (780–807). The school, founded by Sturmo, was famous, and distinguished men emerged from it: Einardo, Rodolfo di F., Valafrido Strabone, Servatus Lupus, and others. Equally important was the library, whose treasures were dispersed during the Thirty Years’ War. In 969 Giovanni XIII granted the abbots primacy over all the abbots of Germany and Gaul. From as early as the tenth century those abbots were archchancellors of the Empress, and from 1289 they bore the title of prince. During the Peasants’ War the territories of the abbey were terribly devastated. The “Reformation” penetrated the region, and Abbot Baldassare di Dembach (1570–1606) energetically promulgated the Catholic Reform, calling the Jesuits to F. (1671) and uniting the seminary with their college (1584). Only after the Peace of Westphalia (1648), given the resistance of the nobility supported by the neighboring Protestant princes, could the Catholic restoration be completed. With the bull In apostolicae dignitatis apice of 5 October 1752, Benedict XIV erected F. as a diocese; it was secularized together with the abbey in 1803. Pius VI, in establishing the ecclesiastical province of the Upper Rhine, fixed the boundaries of the new diocese with the bull Proxida soleraque (16 August 1821); it included the Electorate of Hesse and a large part of Thuringia. They were slightly modified by the Prussian Concordat of 14 June 1929. Since 1867 F. has been the seat of the annual episcopal conferences.
The most celebrated abbot is Blessed Rabano Mauro (822–42), “praeceptor Germaniae”; under him the school reached its greatest splendor, and he may be regarded as the creator of the German humanist school. In modern times, Bishop Giorgio von Kopp (1881–87) rendered great services; he was appointed after an eight-year interregnum caused by the Kulturkampf. In 1886 he reopened the Theological College, which had been closed in 1875.
Prince-Abbot Adolfo di Dalberg (1724–37) founded a university (1733), which was suppressed by Guglielmo Federico di Orange-Nassau (1805). The present library, founded in 1771 by Bishop Enrico di Bibral (1759–88), is rich in precious manuscripts.
The Cathedral, built by Giovanni Dientzenhofer (1705–1712) under the rule of Abbot Adalberto di Schleifras (1700–14), is a combination of a central-plan and basilical building with Baroque elements.