The Diocese of Rožňava (Slovak: Rožňavská diecéza, Latin: Dioecesis Rosnaviensis) is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in southern Slovakia. It covers central and eastern parts of the Banská Bystrica Region and western parts of the Košice Region. Its seat is in Rožňava, covers an area of 7,000 km2 with 343,352 people of which 58% are of Catholic faith (2004).
Auxiliary Bishop Stanislav Stolárik, Titular Bishop of Barica, who until then had been serving as Auxiliary Bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Košice, in Košice, Slovakia, was appointed Bishop of the Diocese of Rožňava on Saturday, 21 March 2015, by Pope Francis, succeeding Bishop Emeritus Vladimír Filo, who himself had succeeded Bishop Emeritus Eduard Kojnok in 2008.
History
The diocese was established by Maria Theresa on 13 March 1776 as a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Esztergom. It was then known by its German name diocese of Rosenau, or Hungarian name diocese of Rozsnyó. In 1776 János Galgóczy was appointed first Bishop of Rosenau, but died before taking charge. His successor, Count Antal Révay (1776–80), caused the church to be restored and the high altar to be renovated.
In 1804 it became a suffragan see of the new Archdiocese of Eger.
Among successors of Révay were: János Scitovszky (1827–38), later Bishop of Funfkirchen and Archbishop of Gran; Béla Bartakovics (1845–50), later archbishop of Eger.[1]
Owing to strained relations between the Vatican and Czechoslovakia, the diocese remained vacant from 1920 to 1990, under apostolic administrators, except for the period between 1939 and 1945, when it was governed by a residential bishop following the return (1938–1945) of the territory to Hungarian rule (after the First Vienna Award).[2]
On 30 December 1977, it was taken from the former metropolitan, and became part of the newly created Slovak ecclesiastical province together with the metropolitan Diocese of Trnava.
The last change of metropolitan took place on 31 March 1995 when it was changed to the newly elevated Archdiocese of Košice.
List of bishops
| Name | Start of the period | End of the period | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antal Révay | 19 April 1776 | 1780 | Appointed as bishop of Nyitra |
| Antal Andrássy | 17 December 1780 | †12 November 1799 | |
| Ferenc Szányi | 1801 | †1810 | |
| László Esterházy | 1810 | † 11 September 1824. | |
| Ferenc Lajcsák | 1825 | 1827 | Appointed as bishop of Nagyvárad |
| János Scitovszky | 21 January 1828. | 18 February 1839 | Appointed as bishop of Pécs |
| Domonkos Zichy | 1840 | 1842 | Appointed as bishop of Veszprém |
| Béla Bartakovics | 1844 | 1850 | Appointed as archbishop of Eger |
| István Kollárcsik | 1850 | † 18 July 1869 | |
| György Schopper | 17 January 1872. | †10 April 1895 | |
| János Ivánkovics | 1896 | 12 October 1904 | removed from position |
| Lajos Balás | 17 October 1905 | †18 September 1920. | |
| Jüzsef Csárszky | 1925 | 1925 | apostolic administrator |
| Mihály Bubnics | 1925 | †22 February 1945 | apostolic administrator (1925–1939), later Diocesan Bishop |
| Róbert Pobožný | 25 July 1949 | † 9 June 1972 | apostolic administrator |
| Eduard Kojnok | 14 February 1990 | 27 December 2008 | |
| Vladimír Filo | 27 December 2008 | †18 August 2015 | |
| Stanislav Stolárik | 21 March 2015 |
References
- 1.Wikisource:Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Rosenau
- 2.Luboslav Hromjak, Pietro Gasparri, il governo cecoslovacco e la Slovacchia in Laura Pettinaroli e Massimiliano Valente, Il cardinale Pietro Gasparri, segretario di Stato (1914-1930), Heidelberg University Publishing, 2020, pp. 185-206. The essay explicitly discusses the government's "persecutory policy against the Church" (politica ecclesiastica di carattere persecutorio, p. 189).