SIRMIUM, Diocese of. - In Bosnia. It has an area of 10,078 sq km with a population of 400,000 inhabitants, of whom 380,978 are Catholics, distributed in 4 archdioceses, 6 deaneries, 111 parishes served by 135 diocesan priests and 27 religious; it has a seminary, 9 male religious communities and 48 female. The see is at Djakovo (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 382).
S. (now Hrvatska Mitrovica), a city famous as a residence of emperors and praetorian prefects, was the capital of the province of Pannonia II. Christianity spread very early in this region, as is attested by many glorious martyrs such as the "Four Crowned Martyrs" (v.), anonymous stonemasons of Fruska Gora, St. Pollio, an illustrious lector of the church of Cibale, and St. Irenaeus, heroic bishop of S. (d. 304). Today, however, the ancient tradition, upheld also by Farlati, which attributes an apostolic origin to the Church of S., is refuted. In the 4th century S. was the ecclesiastical metropolis of western Illyricum and later of Pannonia alone, with the suffragan bishops of Mursa (Osiek), Cibale (Vinkovci) and Bassianae (Petrovci?). In the Christological disputes the bishops of S., Photinus and the Arianizing Germinius, acquired the sad fame of heresiarchs, while S. became known at the time of the semarian councils held there on account of the famous "formulas of S.". S. was destroyed by the Avars in 582. After a long time a new city arose there around the Eastern monastery of St. Demetrius, from which it took the name Dmitrovica, today Mitrovica, while S. (in Croatian: Sriem) remained the designation of the whole region between the Sava River and the Danube. Adrian II attempted in 869 to restore the archdiocese of S. with vast jurisdiction in the central Danube area, but the far-sighted project of the Holy See could not succeed owing to political intrigues. S. was restored only in 1229 by Gregory IX, as an ordinary diocese, within fairly restricted limits. It had as its see the former Benedictine monastery at Banostar on the Danube; later the see was transferred to Mitrovica. The diocese suffered greatly because of heretical movements (the so-called Bosnian heresy first, then Hussitism and later, during the Turkish domination, Calvinism, not to mention the defections to schism and to Islam, and the numerous immigrations). But with the liberation of this region from the Turks (1687-1735) all the groups disappeared except that of the "Orthodox."
The city of Djakovo, with vast estates in Slavonia, most of which then belonged to the diocese of Pecuh (Pecs, Quinquecclesiae), was donated by Duke Koloman in 1239 to the bishop of Bosnia. But not much time passed before the bishop, threatened by the Patarenes, withdrew from Bosnia to Djakovo and remained there. Clement XIV in 1773 united the dioceses of Bosnia (in the real Bosnia there was the apostolic vicariate of Ottoman Bosnia) and of S., and the new diocese with its see at Djakovo preserved the twofold historical name. It depended at first on the archdiocese of Kalocsa and later (from 1852) on that of Zagreb.
Among the distinguished bishops of Djakovo should be remembered George Palizna, killed by the Turks in the battle of Mohacs in 1526, Nicholas Ogramic O. F. M., murdered by Orthodox brigands (1701), Antonio Mandio (1896-1915), founder of the Seminary of Djakovo, and finally Jopis Juraj Strossmayer (1850-1905), famous orator at the Vatican Council, well-known promoter of ecclesiastical Union, national tribune, Croatian patron, founder of the Croatian University of Zagreb and builder of the magnificent cathedral of Djakovo, in which the Romanesque and Byzantine styles are happily fused.
The major Marian sanctuaries in the diocese are: Tekija, near Hrvatski Karlovci, Aljmas near Osiek and Ilaca. Distinguished monasteries and abbeys: the Benedictine monastery at Banostar on the Danube (16th-17th centuries), pious legacy of the Croatian ban Bjelos, and at Mitrovica, where in the time of Innocent III the exchange of the Greek monks took place; Cistercian monasteries at Petrovaradin and Osiek-Cikador (12th-15th centuries), destroyed during the Turkish invasion; the Franciscan convents at Nasice (from 1321 to our own day) and at Ilok (from 1260 to the present).
Bibliography10 works
Stefano Draganović