It is a suffragan diocese of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Baltimore. The diocese's current bishop is Barry C. Knestout , who was appointed by Pope Francis on December 5, As of , the diocese had diocesan and religious priests serving a Catholic population of , in parishes and eight missions. The diocese was operating nine hospitals and seven facilities for the elderly.
The colonial government of Virginia soon enacted stringent laws against the practice of Catholicism. In , Reverends Edmonds and Raymond were arrested at Norfolk, Virginia , for exercising their priestly functions.
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During the last quarter of the 18th century, the few Catholic settlers at Aquia Creek near the Potomac, were attended by Reverend John Carroll and other Jesuit missionaries from Maryland. Reverend Jean Dubois , accompanied by several French priests and letters of introduction from the Marquis de Lafayette , arrived in Norfolk in August This was the first Mass conducted anywhere in Richmond. Dubois later opened a school to teach French, the classics and arithmetic.
For two years, Dubois mainly celebrated Mass in rented rooms or at the homes of Richmond's few Catholic families. According to tradition, Alexandria had a log chapel with an unknown resident Catholic priest by Reverend John Thayer from Boston was stationed at the chapel in Reverend Francis Neale erected a brick church in Alexandria in and constructed a larger one there in The first Catholic church in Norfolk was St. Patrick's in Its parishioners were refugees who had fled France after the French Revolution in It is the oldest parish in the diocese.
He was succeeded there by the future Archbishop Leonard Neale. He removed all of Virginia except for the two counties of the Eastern Shore region and present day West Virginia from the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
