Catholic Intelligence

Diocese of Ispahan

Hispahanen(sis) Armenorum

Ispahan was the Latin Church archdiocese for Iran, founded by Dominican friars in 1629. On 8 January 2021 Pope Francis renamed it the Archdiocese of Tehran-Isfahan of the Latins, so Ispahan and Tehran-Isfahan are the same see under different names. Its ordinary is Cardinal Dominique Joseph Mathieu, O.F.M. Conv., appointed in 2021.

The see

Rank
Suffragan eparchy
Tradition
Armenian Church
Erected
30 April 1850
Latin
Hispahanen(sis) Armenorum
Annuario code
001001683

The see in figures

Extent
1,628,771 km²

Figures as recorded in the register, from the Annuario Pontificio and the see's own published statements. Shares and ratios are computed from the two figures shown beside them.

The bishop

Archbishop
Dominique Mathieu

A see whose chair stands empty is recorded as vacant rather than filled with a guess. On what a bishop is, see the bishop.

The cathedral

Cathedral of the Consolata, Tehran stands in Ispahan, the church that holds the cathedra from which this see takes its name.

On what a cathedral is, see the cathedral; every see church on earth is gathered at the cathedrals.

History

Latin Catholics in Iran fall under the Archdiocese of Tehran-Isfahan of the Latins (Latin: Archidioecesis Teheranensis-Hispahanensis Latinorum; Persian: اسقف‌نشین کاتولیک رومی تهران-اصفهان, romanized: Ōsghof-neshin Kātolik Romi Tehrān-Esfahān). On 8 January 2021 Pope Francis renamed the jurisdiction, previously the Archdiocese of Isfahan of the Latins. Apart from a small number of Latin Rite locals, most Catholics in Iran are foreigners living in the country; the majority belong to the Chaldean Catholic Church, and a small Armenian Catholic diocese also exists.

How to reach it

Chancery
Armenian Catholic Bishopric, Hafez Avenue, Ghazali Street 29, Tehran, Iran

This see keeps no website of its own, so its chancery is published here: withholding it would protect nothing and leave a reader with nowhere to go. Where a see publishes its own site, the register sends you there instead.

What is kept by invitation

The record above is published because it is public: what this see is, when it was erected, who holds its chair, and where it stands among its neighbours.

The working record is not. The clergy of the see, and the hours of Mass, confession and adoration in the parishes within it, are kept for members, and a person reads every request.

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Sources

Wikipedia · GCatholic

This record is compiled from the published statements of the see and the references of the Holy See, among them the Annuario Pontificio. On the method, see the keeping of the record. Whoever finds an error is asked, in charity, to write: [email protected].