PRESOV of the RUTENIANS (Lat. Fragopolis, Ukr. Prjašio, Hung. Eperjes), DIOCESE of. — Diocese (eparchy) in Slovakia, of the Byzantine-Slavonic rite. It was formed by dismembering the territory of the diocese of Mukačevo.
In 1790, Bishop Andrea Bačinskij established at Košice, for the western part of the extensive diocese, an episcopal vicariate, which was subsequently erected as a diocese, with its see at P., by decree of the Emperor of Austria in 1816, and 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 situated in Czechoslovakia.
The faithful of the Eastern rite, although intermingled with the Latins, nevertheless inhabited until quite recently the eastern part of Slovakia, especially the valleys of the Carpathians. After the Second World War (1945), during which many villages in this region were destroyed, and after Podkarpazia was annexed to Soviet Russia, many Eastern-rite faithful emigrated and became dispersed in Bohemia (the Sudetenland) and throughout the Czechoslovak Republic. Consequently, in 1948 the Holy See granted all Catholic priests in Czechoslovakia the privilege of biritualism in favour of these dispersed Eastern faithful (of whom there are approximately 70,000 in Bohemia). The Basilians of s. Giosafat and the Redemptorists of the Eastern rite (vice-province of Michal'ovce) brought about a great religious revival in the diocese, so that the propaganda for schism, unleashed in Podkarpazia after the First World War (1920), achieved almost no success. Religious life flourished until 1948. The persecution of the Church in Czechoslovakia, unleashed after the Communist Revolution, also gravely affected the diocese of P., until its destruction. In January 1950 a dissident Russian bishop was consecrated at P., sent by the Patriarch of Moscow; he prepared the official annexation of the diocese by the Russian Church (28 Apr. 1950), with the assistance of the armed forces of the Communist government.
The Catholic bishop, Monsignor Paolo Gojdić, after refusing to join the schism and strenuously defending union with Rome, was imprisoned and deported together with his auxiliary bishop, Monsignor Basilio Hopko.
Statistics (1949): the diocese of P. itself had 46 parishes and 225,087 Eastern Catholics. But including the administrations of Mukačevo and Hajdudorogh and the whole territory of Czechoslovakia, it counted: 320,969 Eastern faithful, out of a population of 12,337,684 inhabitants; 341 parishes; 311 diocesan priests; 6 religious houses for men with 43 religious; 9 religious houses for women with 39 religious.