The Diocese of Spiš (Slovak: Spišská diecéza, Latin: Dioecesis Scepusiensis, Hungarian: Szepesi egyházmegye) is a Latin Churchdiocese of the Catholic Church in northern Slovakia. It covers central and eastern parts of the Žilina Region and western part of the Prešov Region. Its seat is in Spišská Kapitula; the diocese covers an area of 7,802 km2 with 583,633 people of which 76.6% are of Catholic faith (2004). The seat was vacant for three years after the death of bishop Štefan Sečka.[2] On 8 September 2023, Pope Francis named František Trstenský as the new bishop.[3] Trstenský was inaugurated on 21 October in Spišská Kapitula.[4]
History
The diocese was established in the Kingdom of Hungary on 13 March 1776 as a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Esztergom. In 1804, its metropolitan was changed to the Archdiocese of Eger. On 30 December 1977, it was taken from the former and became part of the newly created Slovak ecclesiastical province with metropolitan being the 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.
