Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mohilev

The Roman Catholic (soon Metropolitan) Archdiocese of Mohilev (or Mogilev or Mahilyow) was a territorial division of the Roman Catholic Church, covering a significant proportion of the territory of the czarist Russian empire.

History

It was erected as a diocese in 1772 by the empress Catherine the Great, in a unilateral action independent of Rome. Its territory was split off from Inflanty and Smolensk. Its initial see was the imperial capital city Saint Petersburg.

In 1782 Catherine elevated the diocese to an archdiocese, and in 1783 these actions were recognised by Pope Pius VI in the bull Onerosa pastoralis officii.[1]

On 9 August 1798, it lost territory to establish the Diocese of Minsk (in Belarus); the same year it was raised to Metropolitan rank. The archdiocese remained the metropolitan see for Russia throughout imperial times and the Soviet period, although for much of the latter period it was the subject of repression and had no incumbent archbishop.

In 1818 it gained territory from the suppressed Diocese of Smolensk.

It repeatedly lost territory, to establish successively the Cherson on 3 July 1848, the Apostolic Exarchate of Russia in 1917, the Diocese of Riga on 22 September 1918, the Apostolic Vicariate of Finland on 8 June 1920 and the Apostolic Vicariate of Siberia on 1 December 1921.

It was suppressed on 13 April 1991. Mogilev is a city in present-day Belarus, and with the demise of the Soviet Union the Archdiocese's territory and title were merged into its former daughter-suffragan of Minsk (which had often been governed ad interim by its Metropolitan, as Apostolic administrator), in the newly independent country's capital, to create the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Minsk-Mohilev. The territorial boundaries of the new archdiocese were redrawn to include only territory within Belarus. Territories of the former archdiocese falling within present-day Russia were reassigned, first to the Apostolic Administration of European Russia, and subsequently to what are now the Archdiocese of Mother of God at Moscow in the north and the Diocese of Saint Clement at Saratov in the south.

Metropolitan Archbishops

(all Latin, Roman Rite)

See also

References

  1. ↑  Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Mohileff". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton.

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