SATU MARE (Sathmar, Satu(L)-Mare, Hungary). - Also called Gran Varadino (Rom. Oradea Mare, Hung. Nagyvárad, Ger. Gross-Wardein). A Latin diocese situated between the Hungarian plain and the Transylvanian plateau, the latter also politically Hungarian from the year 1000 and annexed to Romania in 1918.
The diocese of Gran Varadino (Nagyvárad), begun around 1077, had its first bishop in 1103. In 1930, by virtue of the Concordat between the Holy See and Romania, S. M. (erected on 12 September 1804) was united to it, and it became a suffragan of Bucharest. Nagyvárad belonged to Transylvania during the period of semi-independence of the Protestant principality under Turkish vassalage, which ended with the Habsburgs at the end of the 17th century. In the following century it was reconnected to Hungary, depending on the see of Esztergom and then (1852) on that of Kalocsa. The Romanian Greek-Catholic diocese established in 1777 at Oradea (v.) was at first a kind of vicariate for the faithful of the Byzantine rite. During the Romanian regime the Catholic bishop of the Romanian rite remained at Oradea Mare, while the Latin bishop fixed his residence at S. M., which is already mentioned in a pontifical document of 1216 in favor of Eastern monks who held possessions there down to the "Dissa."
In June 1941, with the re-annexation of northern Transylvania to Hungary, S. M. was separated from Gran Varadino and subjected directly to the Holy See, but in April 1948 it was restored to Oradea Mare. Its last bishop, Msgr. Giovanni Scheffler, is at present (1952) in prison, persecuted by the communists. Before the persecution, statistics gave about 200,000 faithful and 121 parishes out of more than 1,500,000 inhabitants.
Bibliography
Federico Tailliez