Ljubljana (Lubiana), Diocese of

LJUBLJANA (LUBIANA), DIOCESE OF. - Diocese in Carniola (Yugoslavia) with 543,306 Catholics and 21,635 of other religions; it comprises 285 parishes, in 18 deaneries with 486 secular priests and 175 regulars. In the vicinity of present-day Ljubljana there already arose in the 4th century the city of Emona (Upper Pannonia), the seat of a bishop, which the Avar-Slovene invasions during the 7th century completely destroyed. The work of evangelization in the country was resumed by Aquileia, and the whole region south of the Drava stood under the jurisdiction of its patriarchs.

To remedy the inconveniences of distance, the patriarch Bertold of Andechs already in 1237 proposed of creating an episcopal see at Gornjigrad (Abemburg), but only on 6 Dec. 1461, at the request of Emperor Frederick III, Pius II founded the episcopal see no longer at Gornjigrad, but rather in the Castle of L. with the bulls of 6 and 10 Sept. 1462, keeping it under the metropolitan jurisdiction of Aquileia. Nevertheless the Ordinaries of the new diocese, erroneously interpreting the two pontifical decrees, continued to consider themselves immediately subject to the Holy See. At the beginning the diocese of L. comprised 3 parishes to which in fact thirteen others were added: scattered through Carniola, Styria and Carinthia. This arrangement was able to last through long conflicts until the end of the 18th century, when the emperor Joseph II wished to carry out his program that the boundaries of the dioceses should be the same as those of the provinces; the diocese of Ljubljana lost all the parishes of Carinthia and Styria, which were ceded to the dioceses of Krka (Gurk) and Lavant, receiving in compensation from Gorizia those of Carniola, with the exception of some of Inner Carniola incorporated later in 1792. From 1788 to 1806 it was also a metropolitan see (v. GORIZIA, ARCHDIOCESE of), then it was independent until 1830, when it was included in the ecclesiastical province of Illyria. At this moment it obtained a group of parishes already dependent on Trieste. Following the events of the war, on 25 Nov. 1923 it passed a second time under the direct dependence of the Holy See, after having lost, following the Treaty of Rapallo of 1920, four deaneries in the Notranjska which came to lie in Italian territory. According to the draft of the Concordat between the Holy See and Yugoslavia, the diocese of Ljubljana was to have been raised again to an archdiocese.

In 1533 the bishop had been invested by Ferdinand I with the title of prince. Once the period of Protestantism was over, through the work of the bishops Sigismund Christopher, count of Herberstein (1683-1701), and Ferdinand of Kuenburg (1701-11), the construction of the Cathedral and of the theological Seminary of Ljubljana was carried out. The reaction against Jansenist rigorism and against the interference of the State in the affairs of the Church began in the second half of the pontificate of Anton Aloys Wolf (1824-52), who had the minor Seminary built and ordered a new Slovene translation of the Holy Bible, and was a great patron of Slovene culture. But the true rebirth of Catholic life was promoted by the bishops Jakob Missia (1884-1898), later a cardinal, and Anton Bonaventura Jeglič (1898-1930).

Francesco Dolinar