SENDAI, DIocese of. - Located on the island of Hondo, it comprises four civil prefectures: Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate, and Aomori.
This mission was erected as an apostolic vicariate under the name of Hakodate on 5 February 1895, and on 27 April of the same year, with the establishment of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, it was elevated to a diocese.
On 15 August 1912, the three civil provinces of Niigata, Yamagata, and Akita were detached from it and became part of the present apostolic prefecture of Niigata (v.); on 12 February 1915, the territory of the current vicariate of Sapporo—except for the province of Oshima with the city of Hakodate—along with the Kuril Islands and the southern part of the Sakhalin Peninsula, was also detached. On 9 March 1936, the diocese of Hakodate assumed the name of S., with the definitive transfer of the episcopal see to the city of the same name. By a decree of the Propaganda Fide dated 19 June 1932, the aforementioned civil province of Oshima, together with the city of Hakodate, was detached from the diocese of S. and annexed to the vicariate of Sapporo.
The first to begin the work of evangelization in this region were the Jesuits. In 1891, the priests of the Paris Foreign Missions Society arrived, to whom goes the credit for the development and organization of the mission in S. In 1928, the first Canadian Dominicans arrived, who fully replaced the M.E.P. fathers in the care and governance of the diocese, until its transfer to the Japanese secular clergy, which occurred de facto on 16 January 1941 and de iure on 20 July 1950.
The population is 6,825,938. Catholics number 6,613. Protestants number 15,000, among whom the sects of Anglicans, Presbyterians (under the Japanese name *Nippon Kirisuto Kyōkai*), and Methodists flourish. There are 10,000 Greek Orthodox. The missionary personnel consists of 54 priests, of whom 11 are Cistercians; 47 brothers, of whom 39 are Japanese; 343 sisters; 11 major seminarians; 17 catechists; 7 physicians and 11 nurses. There are 7 orphanages; 6 pharmacies; 3 elementary schools; 7 middle schools; 6 high schools. A newspaper titled *Taimatsu* is published, with a circulation of 1,000 copies.