NICOPOLI. – Latin bishopric in Bulgaria, with its seat at Rustciuk (Ruse) on the Danube. It is directly subject to the Holy See. Appellate ordinary: Bucharest (15 Jan. 1920).
The city that gave its name to this bishopric was founded by Trajan and originally belonged to the province of Thrace; after Septimius Severus, it was part of Lower Moesia. It stood on the river Rositza, a tributary of the Iatrus, 80 km from Rusticuk. The bishopric was erected in the 5th century; the names of the bishops Marcellus (458) and Amantius (518) are known. Damaged by the Goths, the city was rebuilt by Justinian, but it declined again after further invasions, and nothing more was heard of the bishopric.
The diocese of N. was definitively restored in 1648 for the Paulicians who had converted to Catholicism a few decades earlier, but its seat was later transferred to Bucharest and subsequently to Rusticuk. Within its territory (43,241 sq. km) there are 21 churches and 19 parishes, served by 24 priests, with 21,892 faithful out of a total population of 2,861,326.