page_title: Archbishopric of Magdeburg
section_title: Ecclesiastical Province of Magdeburg
hierarchical_section_title: Archbishopric of Magdeburg / Ecclesiastical Province of Magdeburg
caption_attribution_description: English: Ecclesiatical provinces (archdioceses) in Central Europe AD 1500. The territory of the dioceses and archdioceses (spiritual jurisdiction) was always much larger than the prince-bishoprics and archbishoprics (temporal principalities) ruled by the same individual. Deutsch: Kirchenprovinzen und Bischofssitze in Mitteleuropa um 1500
context_page_description: The Archbishopric of Magdeburg was a Roman Catholic archdiocese and Prince-Archbishopric of the Holy Roman Empire centered on the city of Magdeburg on the Elbe River.
  Planned since 955 and established in 968, the Roman Catholic archdiocese had de facto turned void since 1557, when the last papally confirmed prince-archbishop, the Lutheran Sigismund of Brandenburg came of age and ascended to the see and the Magdeburg Cathedral chapter had adopted Lutheranism in 1567, with most parishioners having preceded in their conversion. All his successors were only administrators of the prince-archbishopric and Lutheran too, except of the Catholic layman Leopold William of Austria. In ecclesiastical respect the remaining Catholics and their parishes and abbeys in the former archdiocese were put under supervision of the Archdiocese of Cologne in 1648 and under the jurisdiction of the Apostolic Vicariate of the Northern Missions in 1670.
  In political respect the Erzstift, the archiepiscopal and capitular temporalities, had gained imperial immediacy as prince-archbishopric in 1180.
context_section_description: The archbishop of Magdeburg was the metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of Magdeburg (de facto dissolved in 1648), with the archbishops also holding – besides the archbishop-elector of Mainz – the honorary title Primas Germaniae. The suffragans of Magdeburg were: 
  Diocese of Brandenburg, Lutheran since 1539, the pertaining prince-bishopric secularised and merged into the Electorate of Brandenburg in 1571.
  Diocese of Havelberg, Lutheran since 1558, the pertaining prince-bishopric secularised and merged into the Electorate of Brandenburg in 1598.
  Diocese of Lebus since 1424 (before suffragan to Gniezno), Lutheran since 1555, pertaining temporalities (County of Beeskow) secularised and merged into the Electorate of Brandenburg in 1598.
  Diocese of Merseburg, Lutheran since 1544, the pertaining prince-bishopric secularised and merged into the Electorate of Saxony in 1565
  Diocese of Naumburg-Zeitz, Lutheran between 1542 and 1547 and from 1562 on, the pertaining prince-bishopric secularised and merged into the Electorate of Saxony in 1615
caption: Ecclesiastical Province of Magdeburg (in green) amidst other provinces in Central Europe.
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