Roman Catholic Diocese of Cumania

[6][7] Describing the eastern borders of the Kingdom of Hungary around 1150, Otto of Freising mentioned the "open land of the Patzinaks and the Falones"[8] (the Pechenegs and Cumans, respectively).

[12] According to Niketas Choniates's chronicle,[13] "the Vlachs, who had heard rumors"[14] of the escape of Andronikos Komnenus (a rebellious cousin of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I), captured him in 1164 at the borders of Halych.

[17] According to Anna Comnena, local Vlachs showed "the way through the passes"[18] of the Balkan Mountains to Cumans who invaded the Byzantine lands south of the Lower Danube in 1094.

[29] King Andrew II of Hungary granted Burzenland in southeastern Transylvania to the Teutonic Knights in 1211, tasking them with defending his kingdom's borders and converting the neighboring Cumans.

[44][45] Paulus Hungarus, its first head, "decided to send some virtuous brothers"[46] to the Cumans in the early 1220s; according to The Lives of the Brethren, written during the 1250s by Friar Gerard de Frachet, they were unsuccessful and returned.

[47] De Frachet wrote that the next Dominican mission to the Cumans reached the Dnieper River, but the friars "suffered hunger, thirst, lack of covering and persecutions; some of them were held captive and two were killed".

[46][47] Historian Claudia F. Dobre wrote that the "way for the Cumans' conversion was opened" after their defeat at the Kalka River, due to Duke Béla's support of the Dominican missionaries.

[46][54] In a 31 July 1228 letter to Archbishop Robert of Esztergom, Pope Gregory IX expressed joy at the missionaries' success in "Cumania" and the neighboring "land of the Brodniks".

[55] The pope urged the head of the Hungarian Dominicans to send new missionaries to the Cumans and praised Duke Béla, who had decided to visit Cumania with Archbishop Robert.

[59][63] Gregory IX urged King Andrew II of Hungary to allow the Teutonic Knights to return to Cumania in at least four letters between 1231 and 1234.

[64] Nevertheless, Hungary remained the principal ally of the Holy See in Southeastern Europe; Andrew II emphasized his claim to the newly conquered lands by adopting the title "King of Cumania" in the early 1230s.

[32][69] The pope's letter suggests that the Vlachs were a significant group (possibly the majority) among the peoples of Cumania, and they had their own local church hierarchy.

[75] The invaders destroyed the episcopal see and murdered many Dominican friars:[73] After much hard work, by God's help, a convent was established, and the brothers began to preach confidently among the people.

The mission to these pagans was interrupted while, as a result of the [Mongol] persecution, the Cumans were scattered to different parts of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and other nearby regions.

[77] The Holy See did not abandon the idea of proselytizing in Cumania after the Mongol invasion,[78] and Pope Innocent IV praised the Dominicans for their successful missions to the Cumans in 1253.

[79] However, Pope Nicholas III mentioned in a 7 October 1278 letter that Catholics had disappeared from the Diocese of Cumania because no bishop lived there since the destruction of the episcopal see.

[84] In a letter addressed to Csanád Telegdi, the Archbishop of Esztergom, he wrote that "the powerful of those lands" had seized the property of the Diocese of Cumania.

[84] Hoping to receive royal support for his plan, the pope decided to make the Franciscan Vitus de Monteferreo (Charles I of Hungary's chaplain) bishop of Milkovia.

[88][89] A 1235 list of the Premonstratensians' houses in Hungary noted that "Corona" (now Brașov in Romania) was in the Cumanian diocese, suggesting that it included southeastern Transylvania.

[90] According to historian Victor Spinei, "Southeastern Transylvania was included within the bishopric most likely to secure a constant source of revenue from the collection of tithes for the emerging ecclesiastical structure during the first years after the conversion of the Cumans".

[89] In his 1278 letter, Pope Nicholas III wrote that the civitas de Mylco (on the Milcov River) was the seat of the Cumanian bishop.