BELGRADE (BEOGRAD), ARCHDIOCESE of. — In Yugoslavia. It has an area of 48,550 sq. km.; 60,410 faithful (of whom more than 40,000 in B. itself), living among 3,260,000 dissenters, almost all Serbs. In 1938 it comprised 2 deaneries, 15 parishes, and 1 chaplaincy, and had 25 secular and 14 regular priests (Jesuits, Friars Minor, Lazarists, Marists, Assumptionists). Since the diocese was reconstituted only recently, the various Catholic institutions are still barely in formation.
On the site of present-day B. there existed in the 4th century the Roman municipality of Singidunum, with an episcopal see, governed from 335 to 370 by the Arian bishop Ursacius. At the time of the Council of Sardica (343–44), the territories of the present diocese included those of Naissus (Nis), Horreum Margi (Cuprija), and Viminacium (Kostolac), the latter subsequently disappearing under the invasion of the Avars and Slavs. On the ruins of Singidunum (destroyed at the beginning of the 7th century), a new city thus arose which, under the various dominations (Byzantine, Bulgarian, Hungarian, and Serbian), would take the names Alba Graeca, Alba Bulgarica, Nandonalba, and B. The Serbs first took possession of B. in 1316–19, and in 1403 it became the capital of the “Serbian despotate”; but as early as 1427 it passed into Hungarian hands as the key fortress at the entrance to the regions of the middle Danube; and in 1456 the victory took place in which the enemy was repulsed by Giovanni da Capistrano. A Catholic bishopric of the Latin rite was then established at B.; it disappeared when Suleiman the Magnificent conquered the city in 1521, transforming the cathedral into a mosque. The diocese was subsequently administered by various bishops as apostolic visitors, some of whom resided there, including, permanently, the archbishop of Bar (Antivari), Piero Massarechi (1624–32). From 1647 to 1720, the bishops of this diocese, among them Fr. Matteo Belic (1651–74), bore the title of bishop of B.; from 1720 to 1739, the title of Smederevo (Belgradensis-Semendriensis) was added, and they were subject to the metropolitans of Antivari and Skoplje (Uskub). In 1717 Eugene of Savoy reconquered B. Under Hungarian rule, however, they recognized the authority of the archbishop of Kalocsa. The population was predominantly dissenting; Catholics were generally only Bosnian-Ragusan, German, or Hungarian immigrants. Under Austria (1711–39), Catholicism experienced a brief period of revival, so that there were 12,000 Catholics among 20,000 inhabitants, with 8 churches. When B. once again fell into the hands of the Turks, the Catholics almost completely disappeared, and the diocese was governed by vicars and apostolic administrators, the best known of whom was the bishop of Djakovo, J. J. Strossmayer (1851–97). From 1898 it came under the authority of Propaganda Fide until 1914. Various ecclesiastical dignitaries of the Habsburg Empire bore the title of B. Not even through his persistent efforts did Strossmayer succeed in obtaining from the Serbian government permission to open at least one Catholic church and school in the city. These conditions changed when Article 2 of the concordat with Serbia
(1914) raised the diocese of B. to archiepiscopal rank, with the suffragan diocese of Skopje; both were exempt from the jurisdiction of Propaganda Fide. Until 1912, the boundaries of the two dioceses corresponded to those of the Serbian kingdom. The archiepiscopal see, however, remained vacant until 1924. With the formation of the Yugoslav state, B. became the capital; the number of Catholics increased from a few thousand to 60,400, but then declined considerably after 1941.