PRZEMYŚL OF THE RUTHENIANS. - With the united titles of Sanok and Sambor (in Ukrainian Peremysl-Sanok i Sambor; in Polish Przemysl-Sanok-Sambor), a Ruthenian diocese of the Byzantine-Slavic rite in eastern Poland, that is, Ruthenia. Today the city of P. with its surroundings is located in Poland, while almost the entire territory of the diocese is located in the Soviet Republic of Ukraine.
The first notice of an Eastern bishopric at P. dates to 1218, when the metropolitan of Kiev sent to this city the bishop Anthony (Dobrinia Jadrenkovič). The diocese of Sambor was united to P. in 1422, and since in the years 1668-75 Sanok was the residence of the bishops of P., that name too was inserted into their title.
With the whole metropolis of Kiev, the bishopric of P. also fell into schism. Only many years after the Union of Brest-Litovsk (1595) did the bishop of P., Innocent Vinnickyi, adhere to the union, first privately in 1681, and then publicly in 1692. From that time the series of Catholic bishops is uninterrupted, until the recent destruction of the diocese after the Second World War.
In 1807, the diocese of Lviv having been elevated to a metropolis, P. became its suffragan. In 1934, 9 deaneries were detached from P. to form a new apostolic administration of Lemkivščyna. After the Second World War, the border between Poland and Russia cut the diocese in two. On the Polish side the Eastern Catholics, being Ukrainians, were "repatriated" and deported to Russia. On June 25, 1946, the bishop Msgr. Josaphat Kocyloskyj was also deported, and during the journey toward the East he died in Kiev. Thus in today's Poland Eastern Catholics almost no longer exist and the bishopric of P. is practically destroyed.
Statistics (before the destruction): Eastern Catholics 1,159,380, churches 1268, parishes 640, diocesan priests 659. An eminent bishop was Julian Peleš, theologian and writer, who died in 1896. Important churches in P.: the cathedral of St. John the Baptist of the 17th century; in Sambor the Greek church of the 18th century.