COLOCZA (Hung. Kalocsa), Archdiocese of. - A city in Hungary, in the county of Pest, seat of the archdiocese of Kalocsa-Bacs. The city was founded by St. Stephen in the year 1000, and in the same year the diocese was founded by Sylvester II, and raised to metropolitan status in 1135 by Innocent II. In 1242 the whole region and the city were devastated by the Tartars, but King Béla IV rebuilt it some years later. In 1381 a national Synod was held there that was very important in the history of Hungary; the assembled bishops persuaded King Charles Robert of Anjou (1307-42) to return to constitutional government and to retract the laws hostile to the Church.

After the disastrous battle of Mohács (1256), C. fell under Turkish rule and the city itself was completely destroyed in 1690. It recovered, however, after the reconquest by the Christian armies, in 1690. Now it is a small cultural and religious center; of its 12,334 inhabitants, 11,537 are Catholics. It has several religious institutes and secondary schools; the library of the Cathedral Chapter holds 85,000 volumes.

Its first bishop was Asztrik, a Benedictine abbot, sent by St. Stephen to Pope Sylvester II to announce to him the conversion of Hungary to Christianity. In 1093 the diocese of Bacs was also united to the diocese of C., and since it had as suffragans certain dioceses of Croatia, the struggle against the Patarene and Bogomil heretics had its center at C. (L. Balicus, A rom. hath. Egyház története Magyarországon [The history of the Catholic Church in Hungary], III, Budapest 1888, part 2; A. Hodinka, Egyházunk húzdelmei a boszniai eretnehségekkel [The struggles of our Church against the heresies of Bosnia], Kolocza 1902).

Archbishop Paul Tomory was the head of the Hungarian army at the battle of Mohács and lost his life there. Until the Romanian concordat (1929), the suffragans of C. were the dioceses of Csanád, the Latin-rite part of Nagyvárad (Grosswardein) and of Transylvania (the last two became autonomous after the concordat).

The archdiocese extends over 13,000 sq km, with 357 diocesan priests and 45 regulars; with 606,000 Catholics out of 880,000 inhabitants (1948).

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: G. Pray, Specimen hierarchiae ecclesiasticae. II, Cassovia 1779 (see index); St. Katona, Historia metropolitanae Colocensis Ecclesiae, Kolocza 1800; V. Fraknoi, Pazmany es hora (P. and his era), Budapest 1868-72; E. Henselmann, Die Gräber der Erzbischöfe von Kalocsa. Leipzig 1873; J. Rupp, Magyarország helyrajzi története (Topographical history of Hungary), III, Budapest 1876 (see index).

Gregorio Deves

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Colocza (Hung. Kalocsa), Archdiocese of

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