CATTARO (KOTOR), DIOCESE OF. — In Dalmatia. Founded in the 10th century. Area: 6,367 sq. km. Catholics: 13,000; adherents of other confessions, overwhelmingly dissidents: 21,000. The diocese comprises 4 deaneries, 107 churches, 29 parishes, 27 diocesan priests and 6 religious (Observant Franciscans and Tertiaries), as well as 23 Sisters of the Holy Cross and those of the Child Jesus in 3 houses.
Nothing is known of the early history of the diocese of C. (Ascruvium, Æxátepa, Catharum), which may date back to the Paleochristian era, since it is known that from Risano (Pilzav, Risan, residence of the Illyrian kings in the 3rd century B.C.) there came a bishop named Sebastian in the 6th century A.D., who corresponded with Gregory the Great. In 806 the head of St. Tryphon the Martyr was transferred to C., then a Byzantine city, and a few years later a church was built in his honor (the present Cathedral, restored in Romanesque style in the 12th century after an earthquake). The provincial council of Split divided in 925, during the reign of the Croatian king Tomislav, the diocese of Cattaro-Ragusa into two dioceses: Cattaro and Ragusa. When in 1022 the bishop of Ragusa received the pallium as archbishop, the bishops of Cattaro repeatedly refused to become his suffragans, expressing the wish to remain under the metropolitan of Split. This was not permitted them, and they sought the protection of the archbishop of Bari (1178), remaining his suffragans until the ecclesiastical reorganization of Dalmatia in 1828, when they passed under the metropolitan of Zara.
The earliest bishops of C. of whom we have record are Grimaldo (1090) and Orsazio (1124); the names of their successors have come down to us almost all (as many as 67 are known).
The territory of the diocese was very small (perhaps only 200 sq. km.), since in the area of the political district of C. there were 3 Latin dioceses: Cattaro, Risano (Rhysonensis, entrusted from 1540 to the bishop of Cattaro until it was annexed to Cattaro in 1688), and finally Budua (Budunensis); the latter had existed at least since the 12th century, but from 1575 had been administered by other bishops, especially those of Antivari (Bar) and of Cattaro; in 1828 it was suppressed and its territory annexed to that of Cattaro.
The diocese of Cattaro reached its greatest splendor in the 13th and 14th centuries, when all the Catholics of the Serbian state were subject to II. Unfortunately, the Catholics did not manage to maintain their position entirely, so that a considerable number of them joined the dissident Serbs during the Turkish domination, especially in the vicinity of Budua and Risano.
There are several rich churches (Cattaro, Perasto, Perzagno [Prànj]). Famous is the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Scarpello near Perasto. The diocese has given to the Church a Eucharistic saint, the Blessed Grazia of Molo (d. 1508), whose relics are preserved in the church of his native village, and the penitent virgin Blessed Osanna of Cattaro (d. 1567), who rests in the collegiate church of Cattaro.
It has also produced men of great renown: admirals, painters, such as Giovanni Kokoljic (1661–1713) of Perasto, where also were born the great archbishops of Zara, Vincenzo Zimajevic (1713–45), and of Antivari, Andrea Zimajevic.