MUNICH (München) and Freising, Archdiocese of. - In Bavaria, over an area of 11,972 sq km; it has 2,057,220 inhabitants, of whom 1,744,574 are Catholics. It has 551 parishes served by 1,327 diocesan priests and 779 religious, two seminaries, 43 male religious communities and 511 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 273).
The diocese was erected following the Bavarian Concordat of 1817 with the bull Dei ac Domini nostri, of Pius VII in 1818. It was assigned the territory of the suppressed dioceses of F. (founded by St. Corbinian, organizer of the Church in Bavaria, 716) and of Chiemsee, of the provostship of Berchtesgaden and of the parts of the archdiocese of Salzburg situated in Bavaria. The suffragans of Augsburg, Regensburg and Passau were placed under it. The Cathedral is the church of Our Lady, erected from 1468 to 1488 by Jörg von Pilling. The first archbishop was Baron Lothar Anselm von Gebsattel (1821-46). He founded the Tridentine Seminary at F. and restored the monasteries of Scheyern, Reisach, Laufen, Tölz, Landshut, Altomünster and Frauenchiemsee. His successor Karl August von Reisach (1846-55) tenaciously opposed the interference of the State in ecclesiastical questions; created cardinal by Pius IX in 1855, he then moved to the Roman Curia. His successor, Georg von Scherr (1856-77), was greatly hindered in his administration by the machinations of the Bavarian government and by the difficulties entailed by the Döllinger case, and by the rise of Altkatholizismus ("Old Catholics"). During the period of the Kulturkampf the archdiocese was governed by Antonio von Steichle (1878-89), a noted historian of the Church, who with the collective memorandum of the Bavarian episcopate which he convoked at F. in Dec. 1887, managed to obtain a certain improvement in relations between Church and State. He was succeeded by Anton von Thoma (1889-97), formerly bishop of Passau, who continued this work, succeeding also in resolving the question of the Altkatholiken (1890). Franz Josef von Stein governed the archdiocese from 1898 to 1909; Franz von Bettinger from 1909 to 1917, cardinal from 1914. The latter is known for his pastoral and charitable work: he founded the "Union of the Catholic Press" and the "School Organization among Parents". All these works were enlarged by Archbishop Michael von Faulhaber (1917 onward), cardinal from 1921, an intrepid defender of the Catholic faith against National Socialism. For the pastoral formation of the clergy of his diocese, the directives he issued in the two diocesan Synods of 1920 and 1930 were of great importance.
Already in the Middle Ages the region was populated with flourishing Benedictine monasteries, such as those of St. Andrew on mons Frisingeni of the 8th century, of St. Vitus on the mountain (Schönberg)
of the 9th century, of Ettal (1330) and the Cistercian one of Freisdorf of the 12th century. In 1221, while St. Francis was alive, a Franciscan convent was founded on the Anger, later transferred into the city; the building was subsequently ceded to the Poor Clares. In 1281 the first monastery of Augustinians was founded. In the 16th century the Jesuits came to the region; in the 18th century the Capuchins, the Carmelites, the Theatines. At the beginning of the 19th century the Hieronymites and the Oratorians. Of the female Orders, the Poor Clares were followed by the Servites, the Salesians, the Elizabethines, the English Ladies. After the secularization of 1803, which for a time saw the ruin of all these institutions, the old religious houses, to which many others were added, flourished again vigorously.
The University of M. arose through the work of King Ludwig I in 1826, who transferred there the University of Ludwig Maximilian, which until then resided at Landshut. This transfer had not only the value of a relocation, but signified a recasting of the spirit of the University, which was withdrawn from the Montgelas-style Enlightenment direction tending to exclude any interference of religious authority in university teaching. In the footsteps of J. M. Sailer, an active circle of Catholic renewal of studies and of social life in Germany developed around the University of M. It is linked with the names of Görres, J. A. Möhler, F. von Baader, Phillips, Allioli, Ringseis, Döllinger, von Moy and Lassaux. After 1848 currents less favorably disposed toward Catholicism entered the University. In the discussions around the Vatican Council, the University sided with Döllinger; nevertheless the Catholic theological Faculty also counts in the second half of the 19th century not a few illustrious names, among them the professors G. von Hertling, Kl. Baeumker, H. Grauert, O. Bardenhewer, A. Knöpfler, W. Thalhofer, J. Bach, and others.
For art, v. BAVIERA, III. Sacred Art; GERMANIA, VI. Art. - See plate LXXXVII.
Bibliography7 works
Bruno Wüstenberg