Agram (Zagreb)

Agram

(Also ZAGRAB; Latin Zagrabia).

Archiepiscopal see of the ancient kingdom of Croatia, in Austria, founded towards the end of the eleventh century as a suffragan of Kalocsa in Hungary, and made an archdiocese in 1852. Its Latin Catholic population is 1,319,367; there are 1,877 Greek Catholics, 118,304 Greek Orthodox, 9,573 Protestants, and 11,929 Jews, besides a few Mohammedans. Agram has 348 parishes, served by 615 secular and 66 regular priests. The episcopal city (20,000) is pleasantly located in a broad plain, near the Save, and is surrounded to the north and west by vine-clad hills. The castle-like residence of the archbishop and the medieval Gothic cathedral, with its sacristy (itself a church), are remarkable monuments. There are three suffragan sees: Bosnia- Syrmia (with residence at Djakovar), Senj (Zengg, Segnia), and Krizevac (Koros, Kriz, Kreutz). The vernacular of the people is the Croatian tongue. Agram possesses a university for the southern Slavs, opened in 1874, owing chiefly to the endeavours and sacrifices of Bishop Strossmayer of Djakovar. There are also an archiepiscopal seminary and a college for boys, besides a Greek Catholic seminary and gymnasium. Among the ecclesiastical institutes of Agram is the "Piarum summarum praefectura", a fund of about one million dollars (1882), the interest of which is devoted to the support of establishment of charity and beneficence.

NEHR, in Kirchenlex., I, 347; BATTANDIER, Ann. Pont. Cath. (Paris, 1905), 306; WERNER, Orbis Terr. Cath. (Freiburg, 1890), 90; KERSELICH, His. Eccl. Zabrab (ibid., 1773); FARLATI Illyricum Sacrum, V, 330.

THOMAS J. SHAHAN