The Diocese of Tiraspol was a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church on Czarist/Soviet-controlled territory in and around what is now the republic of Moldova. On 11 February 2002, it was suppressed, its territory being merged into the Russian Diocese of Saint Clement at Saratov.
In the fourteenth century the town of Tiraspol had served as the cathedral see of the Diocese of Kherson, now a titular see. [1]
The Diocese of Tiraspol (Dioecesis Tiraspolitanus) was established on 3 July 1848 on Czarist territory, split off as a suffragan see of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Mohilev. The Catholic population was largely German in ethnic origin, although there were also significant Polish and Armenian Catholic communities. During the second half of the eighteenth century large numbers of German colonists went to Russia at the request of the Empress Catherine II. These emigrants were chiefly from Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Saxony, Alsace-Lorraine, the Tyrol, and Switzerland. [2]
The see city of the diocese was Saratov rather than Tiraspol; the choice of Tiraspol for the name of the diocese may have been because the city had been the cathedral city of the fourteenth century diocese of Kherson. [2]
The first Roman Catholic bishop of Tiraspol, appointed in 1850, was Ferdinand Helanus Kahn, OP, a German Dominican. Wincenty Lipski, a Pole, was appointed auxiliary bishop in 1856. During his tenure, the Italian Church of the Assumption in Mariupol, was opened in Mariupol, serving a community of sea captains and merchants. [3] Upon Kahn's death in 1864, he became apostolic administrator until 1872. [4]
Bishop Kessler expanded the seminary, founded a publishing house, supported the work of male and female religious orders, visited all parishes of the giant diocese, and conducted 75,000 confirmations. [5] Under Soviet rule, the diocese, as with the structures of many other churches and religious communities, was the subject of repression. Bishop Kessler went into exile in 1918, [6] and the see of Tiraspol became formally vacant on his death in 1933. Meanwhile, there were attempts to organise the diocese under a series of apostolic administrators, viz.: Johannes Roth, Aleksander Frison, and Augustin Baumtrog, but these attempts ended in increased repression, and in two cases, their execution (Frison in 1937, Roth in 1938). [7] The former St. Klemens Cathedral became a movie theatre.
The diocese lost territory in 1921 to the Romanian Diocese of Iaşi, and again on 28 October 1993, to establish the Apostolic Administration of Moldova (now the diocese of Chisinau, covering the post-soviet republic of that name).
The diocese remained inactive, but formally in existence, until its formal suppression in 2002, when the new diocese of St Clement in Saratov was erected, incorporating territory within Russia belonging to the former diocese of Tiraspol. Territory of the former diocese now situated in Moldova and Transnistria was assigned to the Apostolic Administration of Moldova, erected in 1993. Territory of the former diocese in southern Ukraine is now part of the Diocese of Odesa-Simferopol.
An apostolic administration in the Catholic Church is administrated by a prelate appointed by the pope to serve as the ordinary for a specific area. Either the area is not yet a diocese, or is a diocese, archdiocese, eparchy or similar permanent ordinariate that either has no bishop or archbishop or, in very rare cases, has an incapacitated (arch)bishop.
The Catholic Church in Moldova is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome.
The Diocese of Stockholm is an exempt Latin Catholic ecclesiastical bishopric in Sweden and the only Catholic diocese established in Sweden since the Protestant Reformation. The diocese belongs to no ecclesiastical province but forms an episcopal conference with its Nordic neighbours. Its territory includes 44 parishes and covers the entire country of Sweden.
The Apostolic Vicariate of Izabal is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or apostolic vicariate of the Catholic Church in eastern Guatemala's Izabal Department. It is exempt directly to the Holy See and not part of any ecclesiastical province.
The Archdiocese of Monaco is an exempt Latin ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Monaco, directly subject to the Holy See, not part of any ecclesiastical province.
The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Kaunas is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Lithuania. The episcopal see is in Kaunas, the second-largest city in Lithuania. The archdiocese's motherchurch and cathedral is Kaunas Cathedral Basilica; it is also home to a Minor Basilica in a town of Šiluva, in the region of Samogitia.
The Diocese of Pinsk is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese in Belarus. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Minsk-Mohilev.
The Diocese of the Transfiguration at Novosibirsk is a suffragan Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in the ecclesiastical province of the Mother of God at Moscow.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mohilev was a territorial Latin rite division of the Roman Catholic Church, covering a significant proportion of the western territory of the Tsarist Russian empire.
The Archdiocese of the Mother of God at Moscow or simply, Archdiocese of Moscow(Latin: Archidioecesis Moscoviensis Matris Dei, Russian: Архиепархия Матери Божией в Москве) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in Moscow, in Russia.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Kyiv-Zhytomyr is a suffragan diocese of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church in Ukraine in ecclesiastical province of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Lviv of the Latins.
The Diocese of Iași is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in Romanian Western Moldavia. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Bucharest. Its episcopal see is Iași.
Joseph Aloysius Kessler was the last bishop of the Diocese of Tiraspol in Russia and the last Volga German bishop until Bishop Joseph Werth, SJ.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Halifax–Yarmouth is a Roman Catholic archdiocese that includes part of the civil province of Nova Scotia.
The Diocese of Chișinău is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church covering all of Moldova and the territory of the self-proclaimed state of Transnistria.
The Diocese of Smolensk was a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church. Founded in 1636 and dissolved in 1818, it was initially located within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and later in Czarist Russia.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Ohrid was a Latin Catholic archdiocese, suppressed in the 1700s, and is now a titular see, at modern Ohrid in North Macedonia.
The Armenian Catholic Ordinariate of Eastern Europe is an Ordinariate (quasi-diocese) of the Armenian Catholic Church for its faithful in certain Eastern European ex-Soviet countries without proper Ordinary for their particular church sui iuris.
The Roman Catholic Church of the Assumption of Mary was a church located on the corner of the CommercialStreet and the Italian Street in the city of Mariupol in Ukraine, as part of the Russian Roman Catholic Diocese of Tiraspol. The church was consecrated to the Assumption of Mary.
Wincenty Lipski was a Polish Roman Catholic priest, auxiliary bishop of the Russian Roman Catholic Diocese of Tiraspol from 1857 to 1875, and apostolic administrator of that diocese from 1864 to 1872.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .| Province of Moscow |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Exempt jurisdiction | ||
| Furthermore | ||
| Bishops | ||
| Apostolic Nuncio | ||
| Education |
| |
| Order of the Holy Sepulchre Magistral Delegation of Russia | Igor Kovalevsky (Chaplain) | |
| Others |
| |
| Former |
| |
