Križevci (Cristo), Diocese of

KRIŽEVCI (CRISTO), DIOCESE OF. - A small Croatian town near Zagreb, seat of the diocese of the same name for Catholics of the Byzantine-Slavonic rite (Greek Catholics), suffragan of Zagreb, erected on 17 June 1777: Crisiensis or Crisiensis Ruthenorum. From the 16th century the faithful of the dissident Serbian patriarchate of Peć, largely Slavized Vlachs, began to flee from the Turkish Empire into Croatian territory. Mingled among the Catholics, they came under their influence. In 1611 their bishop Simeon Vretanja, residing in the monastery of Marča not far from Zagreb, submitted to the Holy See and until his death (1630) propagated the union among the Vlachs of Croatia, Slavonia and Carniola (Uskoks).

He and his successors were only titular bishops, apostolic vicars, and were often regarded by the Latin bishops of Zagreb as their vicars for the faithful of the Eastern rite. Under the distinguished bishop Paul Zorčić (1671-85) the Croatian Vlachs from the Adriatic to the Danube were either already united or close to becoming so. Zorčić founded (1680) in Zagreb a seminary that still exists. This union, however, was almost entirely destroyed by the Serbian patriarch Arsenije III Crnojević, who took refuge with a great mass of his faithful in Hungarian and Croatian territory after the withdrawal of the Habsburg imperial army from the Balkans in 1690. Arsenije (d. 1706) and his successors, archbishops-metropolitans of Karlovci, gradually reduced the number of the united to a minimum. In 1739 the very center of the union, the monastery of Marča, was set on fire.

Only in 1777, during the episcopate of Basil Božičković (1759-85), was a diocese in full right erected at K. for the united who had remained faithful. To the jurisdiction of the bishop of K. were also subjected the Ruthenian colonists of southern Hungary, coming from sub-Carpathian Russia (Rusyns). After the First World War (1918) the jurisdiction of the bishop of K. was extended over all Catholics of the Byzantine rite in Yugoslavia (Ukrainian emigrants in Bosnia and Slavonia, Macedonians and 2 Romanian parishes of the Banat). Under the zealous bishop Dionysius Njaradi (1914-40) Catholic life was strengthened in every field, so as to withstand victoriously the attacks of the revived Serbian Orthodox patriarchate. The diocese suffered very grave damage during the Second World War and under the communist regime. Besides several priests and many of the faithful, the bishop himself, the learned Msgr. John Šimrak (1942-46), became a victim of the persecution.

In 1939 the diocese counted about 50,000 faithful, 11 deaneries, 49 parishes, 70 priests (2 in the United States of America), 3 Basilian religious and 41 religious sisters in 7 houses.

Stefano Sakać