PREŠOV OF THE RUTHENIANS (Lat. Fragopolis, Ukr. Prajšiv, Hung. Eperjes), DIOCESE OF. — Diocese (eparchy) in Slovakia, of Byzantine-Slav rite. It was formed by dividing the territory of the Diocese of Mukačevo.
Bishop Andrea Bačinskij established in 1790 for the western part of the extensive diocese an episcopal vicariate at Košice, which was later raised to a diocese with its see at P. by decree of the Emperor of Austria in 1816, canonically confirmed by Pius VII on 22 Sept. 1818. It remained a suffragan of Esztergom until 1937, when it became immediately subject to the Holy See. Since 1930 the bishop of P. has administered the 76 parishes of the Diocese of Mukačevo and 4 parishes of the Diocese of Hajdudorogh, located in Czechoslovakia.
The faithful of the Eastern rite, although mixed among the Latins, nevertheless inhabited until recently the eastern part of Slovakia, especially the valleys of the Carpathians. After the Second World War (1945), in which many villages in this region were destroyed, and after Subcarpathia was annexed to Soviet Russia, many Eastern faithful emigrated and dispersed into Bohemia (Sudetenland) and throughout the Czechoslovak Republic. Therefore, in 1948 the Holy See granted to all Catholic priests in Czechoslovakia the faculty of the Byzantine rite in favor of these dispersed Eastern faithful (in Bohemia there are about 70,000). The Basilians of St. Josaphat and the Redemptorists of the Eastern rite (Vice-Province of Michal'ovce) worked a great religious revival in the diocese, so that the propaganda for schism, unleashed in Subcarpathia after the First World War (1920), met with almost no success. Religious life flourished until 1948. The persecution of the Church in Czechoslovakia, unleashed after the Communist Revolution, struck the Diocese of P. severely, leading to its destruction. In January 1950 a dissident Russian bishop, sent by the Patriarch of Moscow, was consecrated at P., preparing the official annexation of the diocese by the Russian Church (28 Apr. 1950), with the support of the armed forces of the Communist government.
The Catholic bishop, Msgr. Pavol Gojdič, after refusing to join the schism and strenuously defending union with Rome, was imprisoned and deported along with his auxiliary bishop, Msgr. Basilio Hopko.
Statistics (1949): the Diocese of P. itself has 161 parishes and 225,087 Eastern Catholics. Including the administrations of Mukačevo and Hajdudorogh and throughout the territory of Czechoslovakia, it counts: Eastern faithful 320,969, out of a population of 12,337,684; parishes 241; diocesan priests 311; male religious houses 6 with 43 religious; female religious houses 9 with 39 religious.