Ratisbon (Regensburg), Diocese of
It has an area of 12,193 sq. km. with a population of 1,471,938 inhabitants, of whom 1,224,190 are Catholics; it comprises 541 parishes served by 1,304 diocesan priests and 263 regular clergy; it has one seminary, 42 male religious communities and 402 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 335).
It was already erected in the 8th century under the metropolitan see of Aquileia. The first bishops were Ermenaro, Rupert, Lupo, Rotario, and Erardo, all coming from outside. St. Boniface organized the diocese by establishing its see at the principal church of the city, St. Peter; the bishops were chosen in turn from among the clergy and monks of the monastery of St. Emmeran. St. Wolfgang changed the electoral order in 975, clearly separating the dignity of abbot of St. Emmeran from that of bishop. In 790 Ratisbon became a suffragan of Salzburg. The territory of the diocese, at least for the Bavarian part, is probably based on the division made by Duke Theodoric and never changed except for the expansion to the north and northeast due to the colonization and Christianization of the Nordgau, the Egerland, and Bohemia. To these territories were added, in Carolingian times, the monasteries of Chammünster, Pfaffmünster, Wörth, Metten, Münster, Münchmünster, Engelbrechtsmünster, and Berg in the Donauau. In the 8th and 9th centuries the first parish churches were erected. In the first half of the 12th century the monasteries of Prüfening, Endorf, Reichenbach, Mallersdorf, Biburg, Waldsassen, Walderbach, Windberg, and Speinshart were also united to the diocese. The oldest diocesan register (1438) contains 444 parishes. The four archpresbyterates of Regensburg, Wörth, Pondorf, and Chammünster were always held by canons. The diocese obtained its first vicar general in 1309 and its first auxiliary bishop in 1314. Of the 35 canons (1503), two-thirds had to belong to noble families; the rest were chosen from among men of letters. The first synodal statutes date from 1330 and 1377, the first printed ones from 1512. After 1583 synods no longer took place. They were replaced by the so-called Diocesan Constitutions, first issued in 1588. The oldest missal of Ratisbon is from 1485. In 1611 Wolfgang von Hausen replaced that of Ratisbon with the *Missale Romanum*, adding a diocesan *Proprium*. In 1480 the first Breviary was printed in Ratisbon.
In the late Middle Ages the education of the clergy did not always follow constant and uniform guidelines; in the 16th century it was entrusted to the Jesuits. The seminary was erected only by Anton Ignaz von Fugger and Max von Thurn (1750). During the Lutheran Reformation the part of Ansbach passed to Protestantism in 1529, Ratisbon itself became Protestant in 1542, and the Oberpfalz and Waldsassen in 1556, but they returned to Catholicism in 1624.
Of the 67 bishops, particular mention should be made of Gaubald (739-61), under whom St. Emmeran was canonized; Sinbert (768-91), a friend of Charlemagne, who died in the campaign against the Avars. Under Baturich (817-47) the Bohemians received baptism. During the Investiture Controversy, Otto von Riedenburg (1061-89) was a friend of Henry IV. St. Albert the Great (1260-62) resigned after two years of government. Leo of Tundorf (1262-77) began the construction of the Cathedral. The effective work of reform against Lutheranism was carried out by Philip of Bavaria (1579-98), created cardinal in 1597, and by the auxiliary bishop Jakob Miller. Albert von Thurn (1613-49) saw the return of Catholicism to the entire territory of the Oberpfalz and Pfalz-Neuburg. A typical prince-bishop of the period is K. Th. von Dalberg (1803-17). On 8 September 1821, in accordance with the Bavarian Concordat of 1817 and the Circumscription Bull of 1818, the Landesbistum was erected with the metropolitan see of Munich. Among recent bishops, the most notable are Michael von Sailer (1829-32), author of notable ascetical writings, Anton Henle (1906-17), and since 1917 Michael Buchberger.
Bruno Wuestenberg
ARCHAEOLOGY. — In 1839 the Christian sepulchral inscription of a “Sarmanna quiescenti in pace martyribus sociata” was found in R. (CIL, III, 5972; A. Ebner, Die ältesten Denkmale des Christentums in Regensburg, in Römische Quartalschrift, 6 [1892], pp. 154–79, and pl. 9); it is preserved in the “Museum des historischen Vereins” in R. The fine expression is connected with those read in two Christian inscriptions of Trier: “qui meruit Sanctorum sociari sepulcri” and “meruit Sanctorum esse consortem” (F. X. Kraus, Die christlichen Inschriften der Rheinlande, I, Freiburg in Br. 1892, pp. 89 and 135). Enrico Josi