ROSNAVIA (Slovak: Rožňava, Hungarian: Rozsnyó, German: Rosenau), Diocese of. - In Czechoslovakia; in 1927 the entire diocese, with its Slovak and Hungarian parts, counted 102 parishes and 220,727 Catholics. In 1949 the diocese in Slovakia had an area of 6,168 sq km with a population of 313,695 inhabitants, of whom 167,338 were Catholics, distributed among 192 churches and 88 parishes served by 115 diocesan priests; 5 male and 12 female religious houses. The apostolic administration in Hungary has 19 parishes and 63,618 Catholics.
The diocese was erected on 13 March 1776, detaching the counties of Turňa, Gemer and Novohrad from the archdiocese of Esztergom. The great distance of these counties from Esztergom was precisely the cause of the considerable decline of Catholicism at the time of the Protestant Reformation (at the beginning of the 17th century there were no more than three Catholic priests). Therefore Cardinal Pázmány (v.) already thought of erecting a new diocese, but the project was realized only under Empress Maria Theresa. The majority of the population was reconciled with the Church, but the diocese still has a high percentage of Protestants; in some districts they are the majority.
After the First World War the Czechoslovak border divided the diocese; the majority of the parishes, together with the episcopal city, passed into Czechoslovakia, and the smaller part remained in Hungary. In 1937 the diocese situated in Slovakia was detached from the ecclesiastical province of Esztergom, and for the Hungarian part the Holy See erected an apostolic administration. In 1938, with the change of the border, the episcopal see passed into Hungary and for the Slovak part an apostolic administration was constituted, united with that of Cassovia. After the Second World War (1945) the pre-war situation returned.
Bibliography3 works
Michele Lacko