MINSK, LATIN DIOCESE OF. — In White Russia; it was erected by ukaz of Tsar Paul I on 9 August 1798 and then canonically approved by Pope Pius VI on 15 November 1798, as a suffragan of the archdiocese of Mohilev. Separated from the diocese of Vilna, it comprised the province of Minsk. Toward the end of the 19th century it had about 100 parishes and 230,000 Latin-rite faithful.
During the 150 years since its foundation the diocese had only four titular bishops, and even these were able to exercise their sacred ministry for only a short time. The cause lay in political vicissitudes. Minsk was vacant in the years 1816–29 and 1841–59. In 1869 it was suppressed by the Russian government, and consequently the Holy See united it with Mohilev. Restored in 1917, it again had its own bishop, who however soon had to leave. In 1925 the parishes then situated in Poland were detached from Minsk to form the diocese of Pinsk. In 1926 Msgr. Bolesław Sloskans was appointed apostolic administrator of Minsk and Mohilev, but already in 1927 he was seized by the Communists, imprisoned in the Solovki islands, deported to Siberia, and in 1933 exiled from Russia. The diocese of Minsk is practically destroyed.