HRADEC KRÁLOVÉ (KÖNIGGRÄTZ). - Diocese and city in Czechoslovakia, suffragan to Prague.
The diocese has an area of 13,090 sq. km., with a population of 1,294,702 inhabitants, of whom 913,606 are Catholics. It has 477 parishes, with 612 diocesan priests and 50 regular clergy, 1 seminary, 10 male and 71 female religious communities (1949).
The diocese was created by Pope Alexander VII on 10 Nov. 1664; the first bishop was the Benedictine Matteo Ferdinando Sobek von Bilenberg, who in 1668 was promoted to archbishop of Prague. Bishop Taddeo von Trautmannsdorf (1795-1811) later became archbishop of Olmütz and cardinal; Bishop K. Kaspar (1920-31), later archbishop of Prague, was also a cardinal.
The most notable sacred building in the entire diocese is the fourteenth-century Gothic Cathedral, restored in 1864; then the likewise Gothic church of S. Barbara at Kuttenberg. In the diocese mention should be made of the Benedictine abbey of S. Venceslao at Braunau; occupied by the Hussites, it was restored in 1674 (Cottineau, I, p. 479).