An eleven-year-old boy becomes a bishop...!


With the express consent of Pope Pius V...



... Duke Ernst of Bavaria on October 18, 1566...



... from the (ruling) House of Wittelsbach becomes Bishop of Freising.

An epitaph in Cologne Cathedral commemorates the event today...:


The whole thing is a so-called “mutual deal” between the pope and the Wittelsbachers:

The head of the church hopes that the election of the bishop will result in a stable connection between secular and ecclesiastical power (and thus a strengthening of Catholicism in relation to the approaching Reformation); the Wittelsbachers are primarily aiming for a religious-political rounding off of their night-political ambitions!

It doesn't matter that the new bishop is certainly more interested in building blocks than in religion - Ernst von Bayern was not even twelve years old at the time of his election, making him the youngest prince of the church of all times!

Very interesting indeed.The Wittelsbach house was the one that provided my country,Greece ,with its first monarch after the Greek Revolution of 1821 against the Ottoman empire.Otto I of Greece was a Wittelsbach.

Oda.