Combined Cathedral Chapter
The roots of the Combined Cathedral Chapter go back to the 10th century, when Emperor Otto the Great and his successors developed the Central German region between the rivers Saale, Unstrut and Elbe and the Harz Mountains as the heartland of their kingship, thus creating one of the most important cultural landscapes in Europe. According to Otto the Great's plans, the two bishoprics of Merseburg and Zeitz were founded in 968.
While the diocese of Merseburg was re-established by Emperor Henry II in 1004 after a brief interruption, the bishop of Zeitz and his cathedral chapter moved to the new episcopal see of Naumburg in 1028. In the same year, a collegiate foundation was installed at the venerable Zeitz cathedral. These three important ecclesiastical institutions of the Middle Ages (Merseburg cathedral chapter, Naumburg cathedral chapter, Zeitz collegiate chapter), to which the two funds of the Zeitz church box and the Zeitz procuratorship were added in the 16th and 17th centuries, survived into the 20th century as formally independent individual institutions.
Preservers of a 1,000-year-old tradition
When the devastating economic consequences of the First World War and the collapse of the Prussian state again threatened the existence of the individual institutions, a far-reaching legal transformation to foundations under public law took place in 1935 under a common administration in Naumburg and under a single supervisory body: the Combined Cathedral Chapter.
Today, the preservation of the rich cultural heritage and the promotion of current social achievements are the guiding principles of the Foundation's work.
