Metropolitan Archdiocese of Mohilev

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

It was erected as a diocese in 1772 by the empress Catherine the Great, in a unilateral action independent of Rome. Its see city was the imperial capital 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] 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.

Mogilev is a city in present-day Belarus, and with the demise of the Soviet Union the Archdiocese was merged with the former suffragan Diocese of Minsk, to create a new Archdiocese of Minsk-Mohilev in 1991. 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.

Archbishops

See also

References

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

External links