This church became a centre of the Christian mission among the pagan Saxons, overseen by Hildegrim of Châlons, and the origin of the later Bishopric of Halberstadt.
Freudenberg was born in Osterwieck, and grew up in the Saxony-Anhalt town of Lüttgenrode, near what was then the border between his native East Germany, which was then a part of the communist Eastern Bloc, as a satellite state of the Soviet Union, and West Germany.