REGENSBURG (RATISBONA), DIOCESE OF. - City and diocese of Germany, suffragan of Munich and Freising.
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 has 541 parishes served by 1,504 diocesan priests and 263 regulars; it has a seminary, 42 male religious communities and 402 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 335).
It was erected as early as the 8th century, dependent on the metropolis of Aquileia. The first bishops are Emmeram, Rupert, Lupus, Rotarius, Erhard, all of whom came from outside. St. Boniface organized the diocese, establishing its seat at the city's principal church, St. Peter; the bishops were chosen alternately from the clergy and the monks of the monastery of St. Emmeram. St. Wolfgang changed the electoral order in 975, sharply separating the dignity of the abbot of St. Emmeram from the dignity of bishop. In 790 R. became a suffragan of Salzburg. The territory of the diocese, at least as regards the Bavarian part, is probably based on the division made by Duke Theodore and never changed except for the expansion toward 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, Berg in the Donaugau. In the 8th and 9th centuries the first erections of parishes took place. In the first half of the 12th century the monasteries of Prüfening, Endorf, Reichenbach, Mallersdorf, Biburg, Waldsassen, Wälderbach, 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 remainder were chosen from men of letters. The first synodal statutes are 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, the first time in 1588. The oldest missal of R. is from 1485. In 1611 Wolfgang v. Hausen replaced that of R. with the «Missale Romanum», adding a diocesan «Proprium». In 1480 the first Breviary was printed at R. The education of the clergy, in the late Middle Ages, did not always follow consistent and unified directions; in the 16th century it was entrusted to the Jesuits. The seminary was erected only by Anton Ignaz v. Fugger and Max von Torring (1789). In the Lutheran Reformation the Ansbach part passed to Protestantism in 1529, R. itself became Protestant in 1542 and the part of 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. Emmeram was canonized, Sindbert (768-91), a friend of Charlemagne, who died in the campaign against the Avars. Under Baturich (817-47) 15 Bohemian princes received Baptism. During the Investiture Controversy, Otto v. Riedenburg (1061-89) was a friend of Henry IV. St. Albert the Great (1260-62) resigned after two years of governance. 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 v. Torring (1613-49) saw Catholicism return throughout the territory of the Oberpfalz and Pfalz-Neuburg. A typical prince-bishop of the era is K. Th. von Dahlberg (1803-17). On 8 Sept. 1821, on the basis of the Bavarian Concordat of 1817 and the Circumscription Bull of 1818, the Landesbistum was erected with the Metropolis of Munich. Among recent bishops the best known are chiefly Michael v. Sailer (1829-32), author of notable ascetic writings, Anton Henle (1906-17) and, from 1917, Michael Buchberger.
Bibliography7 works
Bruno Wuestenberg
ARCHAEOLOGY
In 1839 the Christian burial 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 plate 9); it is preserved in the "Museum des historischen Vereins" of R. The beautiful expression is linked to those read in two Christian inscriptions of Trier: "qui meruit Sanctorum sociari sepulcris" and "meruit Sanctorum esse consortem" (F. X. Kraus, Die christlichen Luschriften der Rheinlande, I, Freiburg im Br. 1892, pp. 89 and 135).
Enrico Josi