Catholic Intelligence

Mission Sui Iuris of Turkmenistan

Turcmenistanian(us)

Latin Church mission sui iuris erected 29 September 1997 from the Apostolic Administration of Kazakhstan, headquartered in Ashgabat and immediately subject to the Holy See. The Catholic community is tiny (roughly 150 worshippers as of 2014); founding superior Fr. Andrzej Madej, O.M.I. resigned 22 June 2025 and the office is vacant per catholic-hierarchy.org.

The see

Rank
Mission sui iuris
Tradition
Latin Church
Erected
29 September 1997
Latin
Turcmenistanian(us)
Annuario code
001000529

The see in figures

Extent
488,000 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

Bishop
Andrzej Madej
Born
6 October 1951
Birthplace
Kazimierz Dolny
Institute
MISSIONARI OBLATI DI MARIA IMMACOLATA

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

History

For the Catholics of Turkmenistan there exists a Latin Church mission sui iuris, a pre-diocesan jurisdiction that is exempt, meaning directly subject to the Holy See and outside any ecclesiastical province. Its headquarters are in the Turkmen capital Aşgabat, though it has no see.

How to reach it

Chancery
Merkezi Poçta, P.O. Box 98, 744000 Aşgabat, Turkmenistan

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

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].