An agreement between the Russian government and the Vatican dated August 3, 1847, a diocese was established for the Catholics in the south of the tsar’s empire which included the German colonies of Bessarabia. At that time theonly colony was Krasna. The diocese of Cherson was founded on July 3rd 1848, and soon after it was renamed Diocese of Tiraspol, which extended from the Crimean to Bessarabia. The Russian government paid for the administration of the diocese and the priesthood seminary from funds they had confiscated from the Jesuits. ¹⁾

The bishop did not reside in Tiraspol. Walter Kolarz ²⁾ writes about Tiraspol, after which the diocese was named: Tiraspol was a strange place for a seat of the bishop and it did not even have one Catholic church. It was chosen as a nominal bishop seat in order not to upset the Orthodox church, which watched the growing „Latin influence“ with jealousy. The actual jurisdiction center of the Catholic churches of South Russia was never in Tiraspol, but first in Odessa and later in Saratov.

The first bishop, Ferdinand Helanius Kahn, chose Saratov on the Volga River for his home and his successors resided there until 1917. He founded a priesthood seminary there in 1857 to educate his own clerics. His successor was Bishop Franz Zottmann, followed by Bishop Antonius Zerr, who was the first German from Russia to be ordained as a bishop. ³⁾ Alois Josef Keßler was the next bishop. He moved his seat to Odessa to escape the Bolshevists. After their victory, he fled to Krasna (which then still belonged to his diocese), and from there, to Germany. The diocese was vacant during Soviet times. Thus it came to be that the final bishop of Tiraspol temporarily resided in Krasna from January of 1920 until the end of 1921. ⁴⁾)

The above mentioned differences between the colonists and the Polish-Lithuanian priests, created a difficult situation and reason enough for Bishop Zottmann (1872-1889) to assign these priests elsewhere, away from the colonies. German pastors served the parish of Krasna, beginning in 1870 and sometimes Russian German pastors. These were educated in the seminary of Saratov on the Volga. The first German pastor of Krasna was Father Georg Mayer.

More sons of colonists became priests. One of them was Peter Müller of Krasna, who was the first man of Krasna to be ordained. Two more colonist sons from Krasna followed.
See also: Krasna people ordained as priests 7.9, Church Honoraries