The
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
diocese of Tiraspol (''Dioecesis Tiraspolitanus'') was established in 1848, as a
suffragan see
A suffragan diocese is one of the dioceses other than the metropolitan archdiocese that constitute an ecclesiastical province. It exists in some Christian denominations, in particular the Catholic Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, ...
of the
Archdiocese of Mogilev. The Catholic population for which it catered was largely German in ethnic origin, although there were also significant Polish and Armenian Catholic communities. The see city of the diocese was
Saratov rather than
Tiraspol
Tiraspol or Tirișpolea ( ro, Tiraspol, Moldovan Cyrillic: Тираспол, ; russian: Тира́споль, ; uk, Тирасполь, Tyraspol') is the capital of Transnistria (''de facto''), a breakaway state of Moldova, where it is the th ...
; 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. 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.
The diocese's churches included the
Italian Church of the Assumption in Mariupol, founded in 1853.
After Bishop Kahn's death in 1864, successive bishops were Franz Xaver Zottmann, 1872–1888; Anton Zerr, 1889–1902;
Eduard von der Ropp
Eduard Michael Johann Maria Freiherr von der Ropp (1851–1939) was a Polish nobleman of Baltic German origins and Roman Catholic metropolitan archbishop. He was born 14 December 1851 near Līksna in present-day LatviaJānis Svilāns and Alber ...
, 1902–1903;
Joseph Kessler, from 1904. 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, 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 administrator
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 (a stable 'pre-diocesan', usually missionary apostolic adm ...
s, viz.: Johannes Roth,
Alexander Frison, and Augustin Baumtrog, but these attempts ended in increased repression, and in two cases, their execution (Frison in 1937, Roth in 1938).
Catholic Russia
/ref>
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
Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnistr ...
and Transnistria
Transnistria, officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR), is an unrecognised breakaway state that is internationally recognised as a part of Moldova. Transnistria controls most of the narrow strip of land between the Dniester riv ...
was assigned to the Apostolic Administration of Moldova, erected in 1993. Territory of the former diocese in southern Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
is now part of the Diocese of Odessa-Simferopol.
References
External links
GCatholic.org
Former Roman Catholic dioceses in Europe
Roman Catholic dioceses and prelatures established in the 19th century
1848 establishments in the Russian Empire
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