CLEVELAND, Diocese of. - A city in the State of Ohio in the United States and a suffragan of Cincinnati. Its territory comprises 14 counties in northeastern Ohio, with an area of approximately 18,300 sq km. Out of a total population of more than 1,851,834 inhabitants, in 1947 there were 475,695 Catholics, under the guidance of 499 diocesan priests and 207 religious priests, with 197 parishes, 95 chapels, 1 mission, 1 major seminary, 4 colleges, 34 high schools, 193 parochial schools, and 6 orphanages. In 1947 there were 1,643 conversions. In the diocese there are about ten religious orders and approximately 15 female congregations, with 2,700 religious sisters.
From as early as 1817, with the arrival of the Dominicans from Somerset (Ohio), religious assistance began for Catholic settlers in northeastern Ohio. By 1842 there was already secular clergy. Meanwhile, in 1834, the Bishop of Cincinnati, to whom the territory of Cleveland belonged, entrusted the care of the scattered German missions in northern Ohio and the founding of new ones to the Redemptorists. They were succeeded in 1844 by the priests of the Most Precious Blood. The Church was thus able to organize itself so well that on 28 April 1847 the Holy See separated from Cincinnati all the region of Ohio north of the 40th parallel to form a new suffragan diocese with its see at Cleveland. Two years later the boundaries of the diocese were more precisely defined with 17 complete counties, three of which (Erie, Huron, Richland) passed to the Diocese of Toledo in 1922. The cathedral is dedicated to St. John the Evangelist.