Lublin (Lublino), Diocese of

LUBLINO (LUBLIN), DIOCESE of. — In Poland, suffragan of Warsaw. By a brief of Pius VI dated 20 July 1790, part of the Diocese of Cracow was added to the Diocese of Chelm (Culma, known since 1254), and the episcopal see was transferred to L. From that year until 1827, the bishops bore the title of bishops of Chelm and L. Pius VII then, by the bull Onemadmodum Romanorum, made L. a separate diocese, detaching it from the dioceses of Chelm, Luceoria, Cracow, Posnania, and Plock; by another bull, Ex impozita nobis (2 July 1818), he detached part of it to establish the Diocese of Podlachia (v. SHELICZ). L. is suffragan of Warsaw. The first bishop was Maciej Garnysz, who died in 1790.

It has an area of 16,904 sq. km., with 1,113,000 Catholics and 244 parishes, served by 502 diocesan priests and 56 regular priests; in addition, it has 33 priests in the dioceses of Lwów, Luck, Pinsk, and Wilno, occupied by the Soviets, and in other dioceses. It has 10 male and 76 female religious houses; 3 male and 2 female institutions of instruction and education; 97 charitable and healthcare institutions; and 2 seminaries. Pilgrimage centers: Krasnobrod, Radecznica, Chelm-Gorka.

Notable churches are: S. Niccolò, from the 10th century, rebuilt in the 17th century; S. Stanislao, from 1342; S. ma Trinità, Gothic, from 1395; Nostra Signora del Trionfo, founded in memory of the Polish-Lithuanian victory over the Teutonic Order near Grunwald on 15 July 1410. At Zamosc there is an academy, a branch of that of Cracow, founded in 1593 by Chancellor Jan Zamoński (1541–1605), suppressed in 1784 by the Austrian government after the partition of Poland. At Chelm there is a former cathedral church of S. Giovanni Crisostomo from the 13th century, rebuilt in the 18th, in which a miraculous image of the Madonna, a gift from Giovanni Casimiro, king of Poland (1648–68), is venerated.

CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. — It was founded on the basis of the decision taken by the Polish episcopate, under the presidency of Msgr. Achille Ratti, later Pius XI, on 27 July 1918; it opened on 9 December of the same year and was canonically established by the Holy See on 2 July 1920. The Polish State recognized its statutes in 1928 and the diplomas and degrees it conferred in 1933. Under the successive rectors, the Rev. Idzi Radziszewski, Fr. Giacinto Woroniecki, and Msgr. Antonio Szymanski, it underwent magnificent development, and in 1939, in its five Faculties (philosophy, arts, theology, civil and canon law), it had 70 professors and lecturers, 1,400 students, institutes and libraries, and was preparing to open the Faculty of Medicine.

Everything was interrupted by the Second World War: all the professors were arrested and some were executed by firing squad; in 1942 the assistants to the chairs who had remained at liberty resumed teaching clandestinely until 1943, when the vice-rector, the Rev. Surdacki, was executed by firing squad.

After the German troops withdrew from Poland, the professors who had survived elected (2 August 1944) the Rev. Antonio Slomkowski as rector; on 23 August the University Senate was constituted; on 3 November 1944 teaching resumed with only 23 professors and lecturers. In 1946, the number of professors and lecturers reached 70. The University currently has Faculties of philosophy, theology, and canon law.