PREMISLIA (Przemysl) OF THE LATINS, DIOCESE OF—Diocese of the Latin rite in Poland. Already in the 13th century there is record of an episcopatus Russiae comprising the vast territory of Ruthenia, or Little Russia. The present Latin bishopric of P. was erected by Gregory XI on 13 February 1375 with the bull Debitum pastoralis officii. It is suffragan to the Latin metropolitan see of Leopoli (Lwów). Today the episcopal city lies in Poland, but with the new borders established after the Second World War the diocese was divided, and a large part of the bishopric lies in Soviet Russia.
Statistics (1949): area 21,000 sq. km, Latin Catholics 1,200,000, churches 800, parishes 447, diocesan priests 644, male religious houses 25, female religious houses 154. During the Second World War the diocese suffered greatly under German and Soviet occupation. Forty-two priests were killed or deported. Notable bishops: Maciej (Janina), d. 1420; Mikołaj z Błażejowic, d. 1474; Walenty Herburt (1514–72), participant in the Council of Trent, «vir et pietate et doctrina praestans»; Wawrzyniec Grzymala Goślicki, author of the treatises De optimo senatore and De haereticis discursus, d. 1601; Pawel Janina Piasecki, author of Praxio episcopalis, published in Venice in 1611, d. 1649; Waclaw Hieronim Sierakowski (1699–1784), initially bishop of Livonia of Kamieniec, later archbishop of Leopoli, who in 1751 divided the diocese into three archdeaconries: Przemysl, Brzozów, and Jarosław; Franciszek Wierzchlejski (1803–84).
The Chapter of the diocese of P. was founded in 1390, and the seminary in 1677–89. Notable churches: the cathedral of Our Lady and St. John the Baptist, dating from 1460–1744, in place of the ancient one from the 14th century; that of the Jesuit Fathers, from 1627; in Sambor, the church of the Bernardine Fathers, from the 15th century; in Sanok, the cloister and church of the Franciscan Fathers, from 1377; in Lezajak, the cloister and church of the Bernardine Fathers, where the miraculous image of the Madonna is found; in Krosno, the parish church, from 1342.
Adam Macieliński