Rite Latin Rite Country Iran | Pope Francis | |
Bishop (Jack Youssef, Apostolic Administrator), C.M. | ||
The Latin Archdiocese of Ispahan/Esfahan or Isfahan (Latin: Archidioecesis Hispahanensis Latinorum) is the organization of the Roman Catholic Church in Iran.
Contents
Besides a small number of Latin rite locals most Roman Catholics in Iran are foreigners living in the country . The majority of Catholics in Iran belong to the Chaldean Catholic Church and there is also a small Armenian Catholic diocese.
Predecessor in the 14th century
Roman Catholic presence in Iran has always been a function of the relations between the Roman pope and the rulers of Iran. The first Roman Catholic diocese in Iran was founded by Dominicans in 1318 at Soltaniyeh which then was the capital of the Mongol Ilkhan rulers. It lasted less than 100 years into the beginning of the 15th century and disappeared during the conquests of Timur Lenk.
History
The diocese was established by Italian Dominican friars on October 12, 1629 when Isfahan was the capital of the Safavid Empire. The cathedral was situated in the then Christian suburb of New Julfa. This diocese continued under the rule of Shah Safi I.
The next appointments of bishops were only possible with longer interruptions from 1693 until 1708 (Elias Mutton) and from 1716 until 1731 (Barnabas Fedeli). The small Catholic community is Isfahan was devastated by the Afghan invasion of the city in 1722. In consequence the titular diocese was administered from the see of Baghdad with only a handful of Catholic families surviving in Isfahan.
In the 19th century catholic missionaries could restart activities in Iran. From their center in Urmia apostolic administrators tried to reorganize the Latin Church in the country. 1896 the Lazarist missionary François Lesné was made bishop of Isfahan. Like his successor Jacques-Emile Sontag he resided in Urmia in Western Iran which until the First World War held a sizeable Christian population on Assyrian and Chaldaean Christians. The diocese was elevated to an archdiocese on July 1, 1910.
After the devastation of the Christian population during and after the First World War the see of Isfahan fell vacant again.
It was not until 1974 that a new archbishop of Isfahan could be instituted. For this the Dominican priest Kevin William Barden at Tehran was chosen. Since then the see of the diocese has been at Tehran. When Barden was expelled from the country in the beginning of the Islamic revolution in 1980 it took another 9 years until the Salesian Ignazio Bedini was consecrated new archbishop. Since his retirement in 2014 the diocese is administered by an apostolic administrator.