TELSI, DIOCESE OF. – A city and diocese in the Republic of Lithuania.
It has an area of 15,000 sq. km., with a population of 401,306, of whom 385,872 are Catholics, and comprises 135 parishes (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 419). No further statistical data are available, since the entire hierarchy is currently suppressed.
The diocese was erected by Pius XI with the apostolic constitution *Lituanorum gente* of 4 April 1926, by separation from the archdiocese of Kaunas, of which it is a suffragan. The cathedral is dedicated to St. Anthony.
BIBL.: AAS, 18 (1926), pp. 121-23. Enrico Josi