ORADEA MARE (NAGY-VÁRAD, GROSS WARDEIN, GRAN VARADINO), DIOCESE OF. — A Catholic diocese united in north-western Transylvania, in Romania after 1918.
After the ecclesiastical union of part of the Romanians of Transylvania with Rome (1700), the United of this region depended on the Latin bishopric of O. M. in Hungary. On 12 July 1748, Benedict XIV established in the same city a vicariate with jurisdiction over the Eastern-rite Romanians living in the Latin dioceses of O. M., Csanád, and Vács. Meletie Kovács, a Romanian from Macedonia, was appointed as vicar. On 16 July 1777, with the bull *Indefessum personarum*, Pius VI, in agreement with Maria Theresa, transformed this vicariate into a Romanian-Unite diocese, assigning it, by the apostolic brief *Ad cumulum* of 23 June 1777, as a suffragan of the Latin archbishopric of Esztergom. The first United bishop of O. M. was Moise Dragoş.
When in 1853 an autonomous ecclesiastical province was created for the United Romanians, this bishopric became a suffragan of the United metropolis of Făgăraş-Alba Iulia (Blaj).
In the United eparchy of O. M. (10,000 km²), there were (in 1949) 285 churches and 235 parishes with 272 priests and 203,122 faithful out of a total population of 850,122. The bishop since 1922 has been Mons. Valerio Trajano Frențiu, now in prison.
ORADEA MARE OF THE LATINS, DIOCESE OF:
V. SZTAMAR SATU MARE, DIOCESE OF.