SALMAS, DIOCESE OF. – A Chaldean diocese in Persia. It had a Catholic series of bishops from 1560 to 1643, then, from 1709, it was a suffragan of Urmia and administered by the same bishop of Urmia. Faithful (1937): 3,500; priests: 4.
The diocese suffered greatly during the First World War. In 1913 it had 10,460 faithful.
BIBL.: Statistica con cenni storici, in Ann. Pont. 1951, Città del Vaticano 1951, p. 244; Orientalia christiana periodica, 3 (1938). Guglielmo de Vries.