SATU MARE (SATHMAR, SATU(L)-MARE, Hungarian SAZTMAŘ), Diocese of. — Also known as Gran Varadino (Romanian Oradea Mare, Hungarian Nagyvárad, German Gross-Wardein). A Latin diocese situated between the Hungarian plain and the Transylvanian plateau, which was politically Hungarian from 1000 and incorporated into Romania in 1918.
The diocese of Gran Varadino (Nagyvárad) began around 1077 and had its first bishop in 1103. In 1103, by virtue of the Concordat between the Holy See and Romania, it was united with S. M. (confirmed on 12 August 1804) and became a suffragan of Bucharest. Nagyvárad belonged to Transylvania during the period of semi-independence of the Protestant principality under Turkish vassalage, which ended with the Habsburgs at the end of the 17th century. In the following century it was reattached to Hungary, depending on the see of Strigonia and later (1852) of Kalocsa. The Romanian Greek-Catholic diocese established in 1777 at Oradea (q.v.) was initially a kind of vicariate for Byzantine-rite faithful. During the Romanian regime, the Romanian-rite Catholic bishop remained in Oradea Mare, while the Latin bishop fixed his residence in S. M., which is already mentioned in a papal document of 1216 in favor of Eastern monks who had possessions there until the Dissolution.
In June 1941, with the reincorporation of Northern Transylvania into Hungary, S. M. was separated from Gran Varadino and placed directly under the Holy See, but in April 1948 it was returned to Oradea Mare. Its last bishop, Msgr. Giovanni Schefler, was (in 1952) imprisoned and persecuted by the communists. Before the persecution, statistics recorded about 200,000 faithful and 121 parishes out of more than 1,500,000 inhabitants.