TELSIAI, DIOCESE of. — City and diocese in the Republic of Lithuania.
It has an area of 15,000 sq. km, with a population of 401,306 inhabitants, of whom 385,872 are Catholics, and comprises 135 parishes (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 419). No further statistical data are known, since the entire hierarchy is currently suppressed.
The diocese was erected by Pius XI by the apostolic constitution Lituanorum gente of 4 April 1926, through partition from the archdiocese of Kaunas, of which it is a suffragan. The Cathedral is dedicated to St. Anthony.
BIBL.: AAS, 18 (1926), pp. 121–22. Enrico Josi