At the behest of their Catholic uncle George, Duke Severinus was separated from his Lutheran parents and sent to Innsbruck to receive a Catholic education. In Innsbruck, he stayed at the court of the future emperor Ferdinand I and his wife Anna. He was raised together with their children. He had Bernhard von Rathschitz as his own private tutor. He was buried in the Cistercian abbey in Stams. His tomb was looted and destroyed in 1552 by the troops of his own brother Maurice during the Schmalkaldic War.