CSANÁD, Diocese of. – In southern Hungary, on the eastern bank of the Tisza River. The diocese was founded by St. Stephen in 1030, after the captain Csanád defeated Achtum (Ajtony), the pagan duke of the southern and Transylvanian regions. The main fortress and city of Ajtony was renamed Csanád and became the episcopal see. Its first bishop was the Venetian St. Gerard, who also founded a school for clerics and nobles, which became a center of learning for all of southern Hungary. St. Gerard was martyred in 1046 by pagan rebels. Among his successors, we also note another Italian: the scholar Giacomo da Piacenza (1333–43).
Csanád is one of the dioceses that has suffered most from the vicissitudes of Hungarian history. At the end of the 11th century, it was devastated by the invasions of the Cumans; in 1242, the Mongols exterminated and deported the entire population of the region. In 1514, it was the scene of the peasant rebellion in which the bishop was also killed. From 1551 until the beginning of the 18th century, it was a transit point for the Turks, and Csanád again became a deserted place. It was freed from Turkish rule after the victories of Prince Eugene of Savoy at Zenta (1697) and at Timișoara (1716). In 1719, the episcopal see was established at Szeged (Seghedino), and then moved to Timișoara in 1738. Until 1920, the diocese’s vast territory included the provinces of Csanád, Arad, Torontál, Krassó, and Temes. After the Treaty of Trianon, only the province of Csanád and fragments of the other provinces remained in Hungary, with 60 parishes and the episcopal see at Szeged, while the parishes in Romania formed the Apostolic Administration of Timișoara, and there is an Apostolic Administrator for the Yugoslav Banat. Currently, the diocese (in Hungary) covers an area of 3,000 km², has 60 parishes, and of its 330,000 inhabitants, 250,000 are Catholic (1948).