Between 1720 and 1760 large communities of Armenian Catholic refugees from Turkey and
Persia settled in the territory of the North Caucasus. The flow of Armenian immigrants to Christian Russia increased with the
Armenian genocide executed by the Turkish authorities, especially since the late nineteenth century. Some of the faithful were able to take refuge in southern Armenia and Georgia. From 1907 in
Krasnodar there was a special vicar for priests of the Armenian Catholic rite. In 1760 the Catholics in Astrakhan were 1/5 of the population of the city and they had a parish. Armenian Catholic communities were established in Astrakhan, Voronezh, Penza, Rostov-on-Don, Saratov, Samara and Tsaritsyn. Another region of mass residence of Armenian Catholics was Georgia, in Ajaltsije, Ajalkalaki, Bogdanovsky and Chirac. In 1848 the
Diocese of Tiraspol was created with headquarters in
Saratov, to which the Armenian Catholic parishes were added in Russian territory as a dean. In 1850
Pope Pius IX established an Armenian eparchy of Artvin for the Catholic Armenian faithful of the
Ottoman Empire and Russia. In 1878 Russia occupied all the territory of this eparchy and, by decision of the authorities, subjected its parishes to the Latin diocese of
Tiraspol. However, this situation was not recognized by Rome until 1912, but the eparchy of Artvin formally continued to exist until 1972. In 1909 the pope appointed Sarkis Der Aprahamian as apostolic administrator for Armenian Catholics, as a formal part of Artvin's non-existent eparchy. In the 7 ecclesiastical districts of the administration there were 86 parishes: Alexandropol or Gyumri (16 parishes), Lori (6 parishes), Ajalkalaki (12 parishes), Ajaltsije (17 parishes), Artvin (17 parishes), Karin (12 parishes) and Crimea (6 parishes). The current Armenian Catholic community in the Caucasus and southern Russia and Ukraine arose during the Armenian emigration from
Turkey after the peace treaties at the end of the
First World War. With the fall of the communist regime, which had almost suppressed the Armenian Catholic Church in the Soviet Union, on 13 July 1991,
Pope John Paul II established the Ordinariate for the faithful of the Armenian rite who live in countries of Eastern Europe (except Poland, Romania and Greece) for Armenian Catholics in the former Soviet republics of
Armenia,
Georgia,
Russia and
Ukraine. The priest of the
Mekhitarist Order, Nerses Der Nersessian, was appointed first ordinary and consecrated bishop on 17 November 1992.
Armenian Catholic Eparchy of Lviv and its incorporation to ordinariate In 1630 in
Lviv the Armenian Apostolic Archbishop
Mikołaj Torosowicz united his Church with the
Catholic Church and received the Metropolitan title of Archbishop of Poland, Moldavia and Wallachia of the
Armenian Catholic Archeparchy of Lviv. It existed until its suppression by the Soviet communist authorities in 1945 in the areas of western Ukraine that had belonged to the
Austro-Hungarian Empire and were annexed by the
Soviet Union at the end of the
Second World War. The faithful were transferred to
Siberia or took refuge in
Poland and the bishop died in prison. After the end of communism the archeparchy was not revived - although it was not suppressed, its
cathedral of the Assumption of Mary was delivered by the Government to the
Armenian Apostolic Church and its territory incorporated into the Ordinariate. == Territory and statistics ==