PINSK-PINSK, diocese of. - City and diocese of Poland. Covering an area of 50,000 sq. km., it has 319,603 Catholics, distributed among 133 parishes, served by 148 diocesan priests; 7 communities of women religious.
The diocese was founded in 1795, having arisen from part of the old diocese of Luck. Its first bishop was Kasper Cieciszewski, bishop of Kiev. In 1798 it was united to the diocese of Minsk and then, in 1869, linked to the diocese of Wilna. Re-established in 1925, with Bishop Zygmunt Lozinski, it is suffragan to Wilna (Wilno). At present most of it is under Soviet occupation. At Janow near P., s. Bobola (v.) was martyred by the Cossacks and died in 1657. The bishopric of the Ruthenians was founded in the 12th century; its first bishop was Gioachino (1146). The episcopal see was first at Turow, and from the 14th century at P.; its bishops bore the title of bishops of P. and Turow. After the Union of Brzese of 1595-96, the first united bishop was Leonjusz Pelczycki, who died in 1595. The bishopric was suppressed by Empress Catherine II of Russia after the third partition of Poland in 1795. Pope Pius XI, by the apostolic constitution Vix dum Poloniae unitas of 28 Oct. 1925, reconstituted the diocese, whose cathedral is dedicated to the B. V. ASSENZA. At P. there are the church and convent of the Franciscan Fathers, dating from 1396; the cathedral of the Ruthenians dates from the 12th century. At Norodyszcze there is the convent of the Benedictine Fathers, who arrived from Montecassino in 1662.
BIRL.: AAS, 17 (1925), pp. 276, 525, 652; A. M. Ammann, Storia della Chiesa russa e dei paesi limitrofi, Turin 1948; Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 319. Adam Macielinski