KARAFUTO, PREFETTURA APOSTOLICA of. - On the island of Sakhalin, erected by apostolic brief on 21 May 1938 through the division of the vicariate of Sapporo.
From 1907 onwards, a priest of the diocese of Hakodate, present-day Sendai, annually visited the Polish and Japanese Catholics who were on the island of Sakhalin. In 1912 the first church was built in the district of Toyohara. The mission, initially entrusted to the Franciscans of the Polish province of the Immaculate Conception, in 1941, with the establishment of an exclusively indigenous hierarchy in Japan, passed to an apostolic administrator from the local secular clergy. It has an area of 36,000 sq. km. and a population of 331,949 Japanese, with several thousand Koreans and approximately two thousand aborigines of Ainu stock.
The number of Catholics is approximately 557, with 33 catechumens, 3 foreign priests and one indigenous priest, one lay brother
and 3 catechists. Primary stations: 3; secondary stations: 5; one church and 2 chapels. Occupied by Russian soldiers on 15 Aug. 1945, K. was forcibly evacuated by the missionaries and faithful on 17 May 1948.