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Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mohilev

Church of Saint Stanislaus, Mohilev

The Archdiocese of Mohilev (or Mogilev or Mahilyow) was a territorial Latin rite division of the Catholic Church, covering the greater part of the territory of the Tsarist Russian empire (from St Petersburg to Vladivostock). The Cathedral was the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin and St. Stanislav in Mohilev, the co-cathedral was the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Saint Petersburg.

History

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It was erected as Diocese of Mohilev in 1772 by the Russian empress Catherine the Great, in a unilateral action independent of Rome. Its territory was split off from the Dioceses of Vilnius (45 parishes including Mohilev), Inflanty and Smolensk. Its effective see was the imperial capital city Saint Petersburg even if an Archbishop's Palace was built in Mohilev.

In 1782 Catherine elevated the diocese to Archdiocese of Mohilev (without suffragan sees), and in 1783 these actions were recognised by Pope Pius VI in the bull Onerosa pastoralis officii.[1]

The first seat for the Archbishop of Mohilev in St Petersburg was built in 1783 near the Church of Saint Stanislaw but in 1849 a new residence in the imperial capital city was built in a new site and later, between 1870 and 1873, the new Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was erected near it.

On 9 August 1798, it lost territory to establish the Diocese of Minsk (in Belarus); the same year it was raised to Metropolitan Archdiocese of Mohilev with five suffragan dioceses. The archdiocese remained the Latin 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.

It repeatedly lost territory, to establish successively the Diocese of Cherson (or Tiraspol) 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.

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 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 Archdiocese of Minsk-Mohilev on 13 April 1991. The territorial boundaries of the new archdiocese were redrawn to include only territory within Belarus. Territories of the 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.

Episcopal ordinaries

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All Latin, Roman Rite.

Suffragan Bishops of Mohilev
Metropolitan Archbishops of Mohilev

See also

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References

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