**HYDERABAD,** Diocese of. - The present diocese of H. is but a reduction of the former Apostolic Vicariate of the same name, established on 16 March 1845 and definitively erected on 30 May 1851 with territory taken from the then Apostolic Vicariate of Madras (India). It is entirely situated within what until a few years ago was the native State of H., except for the part north of the Godaveri River and that south of the Kistna River. It consists of a large plateau, which slopes gradually from the Western Ghats towards the east.
The area is 43,689 sq. km. It borders on the dioceses of Bellary, Nellore, Bezwada, Nagpur and Vizagapatam. The population amounts to more than 7 million souls and includes 47,000 Catholics, 16,500 Protestants, 942,000 Muslims and about 6 million pagans. Evangelization was entrusted to the missionaries of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions of Milan from 1854 onwards. Besides the Muslims, the territory of the mission includes Indian peoples of various groups: Tamils in the centres, Telugus everywhere but especially in the eastern part, Marathas in the north-east. The soil, more fertile in the northern and north-eastern regions of volcanic origin and less so in the south and east, where limestone and granite rock abound, produces cotton, millet and rice. In 1933 the eastern districts were detached to form the mission *sui iuris* of Bezwada, later erected (1937) into a diocese, and in 1932 those in the south to form the present diocese of Bellary. There are at work 27 fathers of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions and 20 Indian priests, 10 Brothers of St Gabriel and about 226 sisters (more than half of them indigenous). There are also 191 catechists, of whom 5 are women, 123 male teachers and 190 female teachers. About twenty churches and 168 chapels are scattered through the various mission stations. In the preparatory school to the Seminary, 45 aspirants are studying; 10 major seminarians study in the major seminaries of Bangalore, Nellore and Kandy. The diocese maintains 35 primary schools with more than 7,000 boys and girls, 10 middle schools with about a thousand students, 7 high schools with 375 pupils, 10 vocational schools, 18 dispensaries, 6 orphanages with 79 boys and 453 girls, a poorhouse with 161 elderly, a leper asylum with 18 patients, printing presses where the monthly *Catholic Message* is published. There are numerous confraternities and pious associations.
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