PADERBORN, ARCHDIOCESE OF. – A city and archdiocese in Germany. It has an area of 39,228 sq. km. with a population of 9,382,323 inhabitants, of whom 2,345,344 are Catholics, distributed in 605 parishes, served by 1,454 diocesan priests and 464 regular clergy; it counts 34 male and 501 female religious communities (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 307).
The foundation of the Church of P. dates back to the year 772, when Charlemagne had the Irrenssäule destroyed and Christianity was brought to the vicinity of P. by the holy abbot Sturm. The foundation took place during the Synod of Maifeld in 777. The territory of P. then belonged to the diocese of Würzburg. The first bishop of P. was St. Hathumar (775–815) of noble Saxon lineage. He built the cathedral of St. Mary and St. Kilian. The territory of the diocese was delimited by the Synod of Salz (804) and bordered the dioceses of Mainz, Cologne, Osnabrück, and Hildesheim. To the east it extended beyond the Weser, to the south beyond the Diemel, and was a suffragan of the archdiocese of Mainz. Although the diocese of P. did not have special tasks in the history of Germany, it often witnessed within its walls Carolingian, Saxon, and Frankish kings and emperors. Of historical importance is the meeting of Pope Leo III with Charlemagne at Christmas 799.
St. Badurad (815–52) completed the cathedral and founded a college for the clergy, establishing common life there. In 836 he obtained from Louis the Pious the relics of St. Liborius, bishop of Le Mans, who became the principal patron. During his tenure, the abbeys of Corvey and Herford were founded; together with the monasteries of Boddeken, Neuen-Herse, and Geseke, they contributed to the Christianization of the region. Henry II of Werl (1090–1127) consecrated a Christian chapel on the Externsteine (a pagan sacred site). A friend of St. Bernard of Clairvaux was Bernard I of Oesede (1127–60). He founded the Cistercian monastery of Hardehausen and, during a journey to Rome, obtained from Innocent II permission to use the so-called “rational” worn by the archbishops of P. to this day. Upon his return to his see, he found much of the cathedral destroyed by fire. The reconstruction he ordered was carried out according to the design of the cathedral of Poitiers and became the most important monument in all of Westphalia. The history of the diocese in the 13th century is marked by conflicts with the neighboring archdiocese of Cologne; its archbishop Dietrich von Mörs (d. 1463) united the two dioceses (1429–44), seeking approval from Martin V, but the cathedral chapter, which had great influence in the administration of the diocese, managed to prevent this union from taking effect. Under Eric of Brunswick (1508–32), Protestant doctrine entered the diocese of P. and spread despite the apostolic zeal of Bishop John of Hoya (1568–74). In 1580 the chapter called the Jesuits, a year after Bishop Henry of Lauenburg (1577–85) had adhered to the Augsburg Confession. He was succeeded by Theodore of Fürstenberg (1585–1618), one of the most celebrated bishops of the diocese, founder of a library and a seminary bearing his name. During the Peace of Westphalia Congress (1648), the Landgrave of Hesse, a Lutheran, attempted to secularize and annex the diocese of P., but this was opposed by Louis XIV and also by the diocese of Le Mans, which considered itself quasi-protective of P. because of its patron St. Liborius. The bull *De salute animarum* of 16 July 1821 enlarged the diocese of P. by annexing the dioceses of Corvey, Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Merseburg, part of Naumburg, Cologne, Mainz, Osnabrück, Minden, Verden, Havelberg, and Brandenburg. After Breslau, P. became the largest diocese in Germany. In 1851 the duchy of Gotha was placed under the diocese of P., and in 1868 the apostolic vicariate of Anhalt, which in 1921 was incorporated into the same diocese, as well as in 1869 the principalities of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and Sondershausen. Pope Pius XI, with the apostolic constitution *Pastoralis officii* of 13 August 1930, elevated the diocese of P. to an archdiocese, assigning as its suffragans Fulda and Hildesheim. The bishops of this period were Friedrich Clemens von Ledebur (1825–1841), R. Dammers (1841–44), F. Drepper (1845–55), K. Martin (1856–79), F. C. Drobe (1882–91), H. Simar (1891–1900), W. Schneider (1900–1909), K. J. Schulte (1910–20), C. Klein (1920–40), and since 1940, Lorenz Jäger. – See pl. XXXIV.