LITOMĚŘICE, LEITMERITZ, DIOCESE OF. – A city and diocese in Czechoslovakia.
It has an area of 12,000 sq. km. with 1,500,000 inhabitants. It comprises 955 churches with 449 parishes, served by 268 diocesan priests and 83 regular clergy, 32 male religious houses and 49 female, 2 male and 2 female religious institutes, 27 charitable and welfare institutions, and one seminary (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 250). The diocese is a suffragan of Prague.
The first Christian building, erected at L. in 925, was dedicated to St. Wenceslaus; in 1057 the collegiate church of St. Stephen was built. Subsequently, numerous monasteries were added. The diocese was afflicted by the struggles between the Utraquists and the Protestants. Pope Alexander VII on 3 July 1655 erected the episcopal see of L.; its first bishop was M. Rudolf von Schleinitz (1555–75), who organized the diocese and built the new cathedral, still dedicated to the Protomartyr, completed by his successor J. F. J. von Sternberg (1676–1709). Other bishops were: R. von Schulstein (1790–1801), who built schools and educational institutes; V. E. Milde (1823–32), who became Archbishop of Vienna; A. L. Frind (1879–81), who wrote the ecclesiastical history of Bohemia in 4 vols. (Die Kirchengeschichte Böhmens im allgemeinen und in ihrer besonderen Beziehung auf die jetzige Leitmeritzer Diöcese, Prague 1864–1878); and Bishop E. J. Schobel (1882–1909), who erected further churches.