PASSAU (PASSAVIA), DIOCESE OF. – A diocese in Bavaria, existing in its present extent only since 1817 and 1821, but in ancient times one of the most extensive dioceses in Germany and a foremost missionary center.
The diocese covers an area of 5,442 sq. km. and has 497,535 Catholics and 52,512 non-Catholics, comprising 267 parishes in 24 deaneries, with a seminary and numerous religious institutes of every kind; religious orders and female congregations flourish. The sanctuary of Altötting is most famous, as is that of Halbmeile, dedicated to Our Sorrowful Mother.
I. Ancient Period
Very ancient settlements are found in the region, especially along the spur formed by the confluence of the Danube and the Inn, where the Celtic Boii built Boidurum. In 15 B.C., the Romans extended their borders to the Danube and the Inn, marking the boundary between the provinces of Raetia and Noricum. Around 153, they constructed on the right bank of the Inn, opposite Boidurum, a fortress called *Battavia castra*, from the cohort of Batavi stationed there. In the time of St. Severinus (d. 488), the garrison had moved to the main center, now called Batavis, while the former fortress reverted to its original name, Boirto. There were a church and two monasteries, but the ecclesiastical center was Laureacum (now Lorch), whose bishop contemporaneous with St. Severinus is known, namely Constantius; the diocese extended as far as the Pannonian frontier. In 488, Batavis was destroyed by the Thuringians, and Laureacum vanished; the old cathedral continued to serve as the matrix for a new center on the nearby hills, which later took the name of Enns.II. Carolingian Period, First Missionary Era
During the 6th–7th centuries, the new Germanic states began to take shape, including Bavaria, ruled by its own dukes, who from the mid-8th century came under Frankish hegemony. Batavis had become Bazzawa and then the present-day Passau; Christianity was spread among the Bavarian people by missionary bishops without fixed sees, who founded several monasteries as centers of evangelization. Only St. Boniface, in 739, was able to establish a stable hierarchy, with Salzburg as metropolitan see and four diocesan sees, including P., though its territory in present-day Bavaria was rather modest, while to the east, toward present-day Hungary, its boundaries depended on the political fortunes of the German power. After the missionary bishops Ercanfrid and Octoar (of uncertain date), a certain Vivilo, ordained by Pope Gregory III, became the first resident bishop of the new diocese. He was a monk and erected a monastery at the cathedral of St. Stephen, of which the bishop was abbot of the monks. Only after 900 did secular canons’ chapters arise, and a separation between the bishopric and the chapter took place. In 768, Duke Tassilo III brought the relics of the missionary bishop St. Valentine from Trent, who became the patron of P., both city and diocese. Charlemagne, in 791, launched from the camp near Lorch his war against the Avars, and after their complete defeat (796), he established the Eastern March, opening to P. a field for missionary and civilizing penetration directed eastward along the Danube. Louis the Pious then delimited the spheres of action between Salzburg and P., which extended, it seems, even into Slovakian territories, so that Bishop Ermaric (866–74) of P. found himself in conflict with the Byzantine missionaries led by SS. Cyril and Methodius. In 900, when John IX established an independent hierarchy in Moravia, all the Bavarian episcopate, headed by Salzburg, protested to Rome; but soon every political, cultural, and ecclesiastical activity collapsed under the devastating Magyar invasions that for half a century seriously threatened Germany and Italy. Monasteries, churches, and settlements in Hungary, deep into Bavaria, disappeared again, and not all were restored.
III. Medieval Period, Second Missionary Era
After the Magyar invasions were halted in 955, the Eastern March was restored, at least in part, and later expanded into Pannonia under the rule of the Babenbergs (976–1246), forming the territory that would later become Austria. At this time, P. had its most celebrated bishop, Pilgrim (971–991), a learned, energetic man and a staunch defender of the rights (real and supposed) of his see. A legend then current held that P. continued the ancient see of Lorch, which had become archiepiscopal and metropolitan of Pannonia, transferred from Vivilo to P. because of the barbarian migrations; a spurious list of bishops had even been fabricated, headed by St. Maximus of Celeia (4th century); and now, with the conversion of the Magyar people, Pilgrim claimed for his see the alleged metropolitan prerogatives of Lorch over all Pannonia, i.e., Hungary. With forged documents, he secured recognition from the imperial court of rights over the revived monasteries (Kremsmünster, St. Florian, St. Pölten, etc.). In 972 and 974, he asked Benedict VI to confirm his alleged metropolitan rights, but Archbishop Frederick of Salzburg succeeded in thwarting Pilgrim’s efforts by securing confirmation of a single metropolitan for Bavaria and the eastern territories as far as Pannonia. Yet Pilgrim fabricated a series of imperial and papal diplomas to prove the continuation at P. of the (non-existent) metropolitan see of Lorch (the famous “Passauer” or “Lorch forgeries”), without achieving his goal. Meanwhile, Pilgrim elevated the cathedral school, held various synods in notable places of the Eastern March, and displayed remarkable activity in colonization and ecclesiastical foundations (churches, monasteries, cells, agricultural centers, etc.). In 985, he held a synod at Lorch and had the relics of St. Maximus, believed to have been archbishop of Lorch, translated to P., where he is venerated as the second patron of the diocese. From Otto III, the bishop of P. received sovereign rights over certain territories of the diocese, so that later the bishop became a prince of the Empire. The 11th–13th centuries were notable for P. as the most fruitful period for monastic and ecclesiastical foundations (mother parishes) and for cultural penetration, always in collaboration with the nobility and especially with the margraves, who became dukes of Austria in 1156. Otto of Lonsdorf (1254–65) introduced and promoted higher studies and reorganized the administration; he was greatly charitable and left the collection of diocesan documents in the *Codex Lonsdorfianus* (ed. in *Monum. Boica*, XVIII, 2, 40 ff.). At the same time, the cathedral canon Albert of Beham (1260), a historian and man of wide-ranging political-religious action, revived the fabulous history of Lorch, making it almost the pivot of new aspirations for the bishops of P. It must be noted that the greater part of P.’s territory belonged to Austria, a country then of great importance.Under Bishop Peter (1265–80), Austria passed to the House of Habsburg, and later Vienna became the capital of the Empire; hence the Austrian rulers soon sought to make Vienna and their lands ecclesiastically independent as well. In 1365, Rudolph “the Founder” founded the first university in Germany at Vienna and obtained the elevation of Vienna’s mother church, St. Stephen, to a collegiate church. P. exercised its jurisdiction in Austrian territories through an *officialis* (a kind of vicar general), until in 1469 Emperor Frederick III secured from Pope Paul II the erection of two modest bishoprics at Vienna and Wiener-Neustadt, to the great displeasure of P. During this period, P. often had zealous and active bishops; synods were held with a certain regularity; in 1513, Viguleus Fröschl published a diocesan Ritual.
IV. Age of the "Reformation" and "Counter-Reformation" until the end of the ancient diocese
The history of the "Reformation" and "Counter-Reformation" in the diocese of P. followed the general course Austria (v.). The bishops all remained within the tradition of Catholic faith: Wolfgang of Salm (1540–55) summoned the Jesuits (Fr. Bobadilla), established a gymnasium in P., and introduced the catechism of St. Peter Canisius; Urban of Treunbach (1561–98) greatly favored the Franciscans and especially the Capuchins, as more popular. The government of Vienna did everything possible to ensure that the see of P. was occupied by ecclesiastics of Austrian origin; and this lasted from 1598 until the end of the ancient diocese; indeed, for almost a century they were even archdukes (1598–1664), who, however, exercised a truly salutary and effective government in collaboration with the governmental organs. Archduke Leopold founded in 1613 a college directed by the Jesuits; Archduke Leopold William in 1638 the Tridentine seminary. Famous was Bishop Joseph Dominicus of Lamberg (1723–61), who visited the diocese 169 times, established the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, on the model of that in Rome, and in 1735 became a cardinal. Under him, after disputes and conflicts, the metropolitan see of Vienna was erected, with a considerable enlargement of territory (1728), by which the diocese of P. lost a good third of its lands. In compensation, Lamberg finally obtained exemption from the metropolitan jurisdiction of Salzburg and the pallium, though without the title of archbishop. Leopold of Firmian (1763–83), infected with Enlightenment ideas like many other prelates at the time, was intent on spiritual profit. Immediately after his death, Emperor Joseph II in 1784 decreed the end of P.’s jurisdiction over Austrian territories and, with papal approval, erected the new bishoprics of St. Pölten and Linz as suffragans of Vienna. The territory of P. remained very modest and entirely within Bavaria; the general secularization of 1803 put an end also to the ecclesiastical sovereignty of the bishop of P., and the last prince-bishop, Leopold Leonard Raymund of Thun, retired to his personal estates in Bohemia, where he died in 1825, while the diocese was governed by the Chapter and a vicar.
V. The modern diocese
The Napoleonic upheavals obliged Bavaria to a complete reorganization of its ecclesiastical circumscriptions, which was effected in the Concordat of 1817. On 8 September 1821 the circumscription bull was published, by which P. received the eastern part of the diocese of Passau—with some additions taken from Salzburg—becoming a suffragan of Munich. The new order took effect on 8 December 1822, but only after the death of the last incumbent did the diocese receive a new bishop of its own. In 1828 the seminary and a lyceum were reopened; the philosophical-theological academy, founded in 1612, was reopened in 1833 as a theological faculty. The diocese of P. shared the fortunes of Catholic life in Bavaria.
The cathedral of St. Stephen, after various rebuildings, presents itself as a Gothic structure (1407), rebuilt after the fire of 1622 with Baroque naves (Carlo Lurago) and rich decoration (G. B. Carlone), and containing one of the grandest organs in Germany. The church of St. Severinus dates from the Carolingian age, with paleo-Christian remains; the present building is of the 11th–12th centuries, with a Gothic choir. Above the Innstadt rises the shrine church of Mariahilf. The whole city, with its suburbs on the various banks, presents an extremely picturesque aspect.