BELGRADE (Beograd), Archdiocese of. - In Yugoslavia. It has an area of 48,550 sq. km.; 60,410 faithful (of whom over 40,000 in B. itself), who live among 3,260,000 dissidents, almost all Serbs. In 1938 it comprised 2 deaneries, 15 parishes and 1 chaplaincy, and it numbers 25 secular priests and 14 regulars (Jesuits, Friars Minor, Lazarists, Marists, Assumptionists). Since the diocese is of recent re-establishment, the various Catholic institutions are only just being formed.
On the site of present-day B. there existed in the 4th century the Roman municipium of Singidunum with an episcopal see, governed from 335 to 370 by the Arian bishop Ursacius. At the time of the Council of Sardica (343-44) in the territory of the present diocese there were those of Naissus (Nis), Horreum Margi (Cuprija) and Viminacium (Kostolac), which later disappeared under the invasion of the Avars and the Slavs. On the ruins of Singidunum (destroyed from the beginning of the 7th century) there then appeared a new city which under the various dominations (Byzantine, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Serbian) would take the name of Alba Graeca, Alba Bulgarica, Nandonalba and B. The Serbs first came into possession of B. in 1316-19, which was then in 1403 the capital of the "Serbian despotate"; but already in 1427 it passed into Hungarian hands as a key fortress at the entrance to the regions of the middle Danube; and in 1456 there occurred the victory in which he refuses and John of Capistrano. A Catholic see of the Latin rite was then erected at B., which disappeared when Suleiman the Magnificent conquered the city in 1521, transforming the cathedral into a mosque. The diocese was then administered by various bishops as apostolic visitors, some of whom resided there, as did permanently the archbishop of Bar (Antivari) Piero Massarechi (1624-32). From 1647 to 1720 the bishops of this diocese, among whom was also Fr. Matteo Belic (1651-74), held the title of bishop of B., to which from 1720 to 1739 was added that of Smederevo (Belgradensis-Semendriensis), and they were subject to the metropolitan of Antivari and to that of Skoplje (Uskub). In 1717 Eugene of Savoy reconquered B. Under Hungarian rule, however, they recognized the authority of the archbishop of Kalocsa. The population was in the majority dissident; Catholics were generally only the Bosnian-Ragusan, German or Hungarian immigrants. Under Austria (1711-39) Catholicism had a brief period of revival, so that 12,000 Catholics were counted out of 20,000 inhabitants, with 8 churches. When B. fell again into the hands of the Turks, the Catholics almost completely disappeared and the diocese was governed by vicars and apostolic administrators, of whom the best known is the bishop of Djakovo, J. J. Strossmayer (1851-97). From 1898 it passed under the dependence of Propaganda Fide until 1914. Several ecclesiastical dignitaries of the Habsburg empire bore the title of B. Not even with his insistent efforts did Strossmayer succeed in obtaining from the Serbian government authorization to open in the city at least one Catholic church and school. These conditions changed when art. 2 of the concordat with Serbia
(1914) elevated the diocese of B. to archiepiscopal rank with the suffragan diocese of Skopje, both exempt from the jurisdiction of Propaganda Fide. The boundaries of the two dioceses corresponded until 1912 to those of the Serbian kingdom. The archiepiscopal see, however, remained vacant until 1924. With the formation of the Yugoslav state, B. became the capital; the number of Catholics increased from a few thousand to 60,400, only to decrease considerably after 1941.