LIMBURG, Diocese of. - City and diocese of Germany. The diocese comprises the duchy of Nassau and the city of Frankfurt, to which were added in 1884 the province of Biedenkopf and the territory of Homburg.
The endowment of the diocese was declared miserable by Leo XIII. After the Concordat of 13 Aug. 1929, 6 parish districts of west Frankfurt and the province of Wetzlar were annexed to the diocese. It is a suffragan of Cologne.
The diocese, out of 1,527,250 inhabitants, counts 606,900 Catholics, 431 parishes, 520 secular priests and 204 regular priests, 27 male religious communities and 180 female ones (Ann. pont., 1951, p. 247); 2 gymnasium-convicts and a theological-philosophical faculty in Frankfurt.
The episcopal curia resides in the ancient Franciscan convent, built already in the time of St. Francis. At present there are in the diocese 6 Franciscan monasteries, one Cistercian, one Capuchin, one of the Oblates, one of the Pallottines, two houses of the Jesuits, three of the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, two of the Salesians and 9 of the Brothers of Mercy. In the diocese there are 19 communities of sisters, among which the Benedictine nuns of Eibingen, the Pallottine Sisters and the Sisters of Dernbach.
The origins of the city go back to Roman times. The first cathedral was built in the 9th century, dedicated to St. George and consecrated by Archbishop Hetti of Trier. The second basilica was built by Count Conrad Kurzibold around 910. Even today his funeral commemoration is celebrated in the cathedral. The present cathedral, in early Gothic forms, was consecrated in 1235. It has seven towers and is one of the finest examples of its era in Germany, and it was built at the behest of Count Henry von Isenburg. The Chapter, in its most flourishing period, counted 58 canons, of whom 30 were resident. Common life, however, declined already in the 13th century. Ecclesiastical administration until 1794 was directed by the office of the Archbishop of Trier located in Koblenz. In that year the last official, Ludwig Beck, a Febronian, withdrew before the French invasion, taking refuge in Limburg, and from then on L. had the function of an ecclesiastical administration dependent on Trier for the rural deaneries of the right bank of the Rhine, Dietkirchen, with 27 parishes, Cunosteln-Engers with 51 parishes, and Camp with 9 parishes. In 1802 Archbishop Clement Wenceslaus elevated this office of L. to a general vicariate headed by Beck. After the death of Clement Wenceslaus in 1812, Beck administered the general vicariate as capitular vicar. After his death, in March 1816, he was succeeded, by decree of Dahlberg, by a regent of the vicariate in the person of the parish priest Corden, who was then appointed apostolic vicar by Pius VII on 8 July 1818. Only with the bull Ad dominici gregis custodiam (11 Apr. 1827) was the new diocese of L. erected, with a Chapter composed of a dean, five canons and two vicars.
Bibliography3 works
Bruno Wuestenberg