PINSK-PINSK, Diocese of. - City and diocese of Poland. Over an area of 50,000 sq km it has 319,603 Catholics, distributed in 133 parishes, served by 148 diocesan priests; 7 female religious communities.
The diocese was founded in 1795, arising from a part of the old diocese of Luck. The 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 a suffragan of Wilna (Wilno). At present the greater part is under Soviet occupation. At Janow near P., St. Andrew 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 Joachim (1146). The episcopal see was first at Turow, from the 14th century at P., and its bishops held the title of bishops of P. and Turow. After the Union of Brzese of 1595-96, the first united bishop was Leonjusz Pelczycki, d. 1595. The bishopric was suppressed by Empress Catherine II of Russia after the third partition of Poland in 1795. Pope Pius XI, with the apostolic constitution Vix dum Poloniae unitas of 28 Oct. 1925, reconstituted the diocese with a cathedral dedicated to the B. V. Assunta. At P. there is the church and cloister of the Friars Minor of 1396; the cathedral of the Ruthenians is from the 12th century. At Norodyszcze there is the cloister of the Benedictine fathers, who came 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