ALBA JULIA, DIOCESE OF. - Romanian city, in Transylvania. In Romanian Alba Iulia (from medieval Latin Alba Iulia: the Weissenburg of the immigrant Germans, later Karlsburg), in Hungarian Gyulafehérvár. From 1103 to 1558 it was the see of the bishops of Transylvania, who, driven away by the rapid and violent spread of Protestantism and forced to reside outside the diocese, returned there in 1716; it was subject to Kalocsa, but since 1927 has been a suffragan of Bucharest.
The foundation of the bishopric by s. Stefano, after the occupation of Transylvania (1003), is legendary. The first bishop, Simone, dates from 1103-13. The count-bishop Ignazio Batthyáni (1786-98), known for his resistance to the innovations of Giuseppe II, issued regulations for clerical life, collected and published ancient Hungarian ecclesiastical laws, and founded a kind of university, the « Batthyáno », with an observatory.
In 1920 Transylvania passed to Romania. The Concordat of 1927 reorganized its ecclesiastical jurisdictions. The diocese has 390,000 Catholics, with 249 parishes, 320 diocesan priests, and 109 regular clergy. The cathedral, partly Romanesque and partly Gothic, is dedicated to s. Michele.