SEATTLE, Diocese of. — Diocese and city in the State of Washington (U.S.A.). Suffragan of Portland, Oregon, the diocese of S. was first erected as the diocese of Walla Walla on 31 May 1850. The name was then changed to Nesqually and again to that of S. on 11 Sept. 1907.
S. covers an area of 36,644 square miles, with a total population (1950 census) of 1,580,615 inhabitants, of whom 192,000 are Catholic. There are 348 diocesan priests, of whom 207 are religious belonging to 7 different congregations, 108 parishes, 76 chapels, 58 missions, 14 stations, 17 women’s congregations (1,021 sisters), 1 seminary, 1 minor seminary.
The first bishop of S. whose name is recorded is a certain Bassus (387). At first S. belonged to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Thessalonica; in 412 it is spoken of as the metropolitan see of the province of “Praevalitana”; after the destruction of the city in 877 it came under the new metropolis of Dioclea; in 1062 it is mentioned as a suffragan of Antivari.