Roman Catholic Diocese of Minsk (1798–1869)
53°52′30.36″N 27°32′8.48″E / 53.8751000°N 27.5356889°E
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Minsk was a territorial unit of the Latin Church, with its seat in the city of Minsk. It was established by imperial ukase on 28 April 1798, and approved by the Apostolic See by decree on 29 July 1798. It was abolished by imperial ukase in 1869.
The Diocese of Minsk was established in the territories of present-day Belarus, which in the 19th century belonged to the Russian Empire as part of the Russian Partition. Its boundaries were delineated by a triangle, with the northern (upper) vertex being the mouth of the Drissa river into the Daugava, and the base being a line to the south of the Pripyat river. It encompassed the area of the Minsk Governorate and bordered the dioceses of Vilnius, Lutsk, Zhytomyr, and Mogilev. Ecclesiastically, the Minsk diocese was part of the Mogilev ecclesiastical province. Its area at the beginning of its existence was over 90,000 km2.
The period after the January Uprising was the decline of the diocese. It was abolished in 1869. The areas under its care were re-incorporated into the Vilnius diocese but later, after 1882, the territory was governed as apostolic administrator by the Archbishop of Mohilev.
The diocese of Minsk was revived as an independent see in 1917 (Zygmunt Łoziński was the Bishop of Minsk until 1925) but it was vacant between 1925 and 1991 when it merged with Mohilev to form the current Archdiocese of Minsk-Mohilev.