PINSK-PINSK, Diocese of. – A city and diocese in 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 part of the old diocese of Luck. Its first bishop was Kasper Cieciszewski, bishop of Kiev. In 1798 it was united with the diocese of Minsk and then, in 1869, linked to the diocese of Wilna. Restored in 1925, with Bishop Zygmunt Lozinski. It is a suffragan of 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 1957.
The Ruthenian bishopric was founded in the 12th century; its first bishop was Gioachino (1146). The episcopal see was first at Turów, from the 14th century at P., and its bishops bore the title of bishops of P. and Turow. After the Union of Brzesc of 1595–96, the first united bishop was Leoncjusz 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.M. Assumed. At P. there is the church and cloister of the Franciscan Fathers dating from 1396; the Ruthenian cathedral is from the 12th century. At Norodyszcze there is the cloister of the Benedictine Fathers, who arrived from Montecassino in 1662.