Csanád, Diocese of

CSANÁD, DIOCESI di. - In southern Hungary, on the eastern bank of the Tisza River. The diocese was founded by St. Stephen in 1030, after the captain C. defeated Achtum (Ajtony), the paganizing duke of the southern and Transylvanian parts. Ajtony's principal fortress and city was called C. and became the episcopal see. Its first bishop was the Venetian St. Gerard, who also founded a school for clerics and nobles, which became a center of study for all of southern Hungary. St. Gerard was martyred in 1046 by rebellious pagans. Among his successors we note also another Italian: the scholar Giacomo da Piacenza (1333-43).

C. is one of the dioceses that suffered most from the vicissitudes of Hungarian history. At the end of the 11th century it was devastated by the invasions of the Cumans; in 1242 the Mongols exterminated and deported the entire population of the region. In 1514 it was the theater of the peasants' rebellion, who also killed the bishop. From 1551 until the beginning of the 18th century it was the passageway of the Turks, so that C. became a desert once again. It freed itself from the Turkish yoke after the victories of Eugene of Savoy at Zenta (1697) and at Temesvár (1716). In 1719 the episcopal see was established at Szeged (Seghedino), then at Temesvár in 1738. The territory of the very extensive diocese comprised, until 1920, the provinces of C., Arad, Torontal, Krassó, Temes. After the peace of Trianon only the province of C. and fragments of the other provinces remained to Hungary, with 60 parishes, with the episcopal see at Szeged, while the parishes in Romania formed the apostolic administration of Temesvár (Timisoara), and there is an apostolic administrator of the Yugoslav Banat. At present the diocese (in Hungary) has an area of 3000 sq km, numbers 60 parishes and of its 330,000 inhabitants 250,000 are Catholics (1948).