The age of the Christianity of our people is lost in the darkness of time. Paleo-Christian objects were also discovered at Caransebes.
The appearance and the development of Christianity near Caransebes is testified by the discovery of a lid of a vessel, who has a button in form of a cross, but also through numerous paleo-Christian signs discovered until today.
After defeating the Bulgarians, The Byzantine Emperor Vasile II establishes the Ohrida patriarchy, raises to the rank of archiepiscopacy in 1019. Between the subordinated eparchies documents mention the eparchy of Divisiskos (Dibiskos), which is the Greek Byzantine transcription of Tibisco. This church centre of orthodox rite functioned until 1232.
The vicinity to the religious centres of the monasteries from Muntenia determined a powerful Byzantine religious influence, which permitted a harsh resistance to the catholicization undertaken by the Hungarian Kingdom.
The papal documents from the beginning of the 14th century, like as well the one which describes the visit of the Byzantine Emperor John V Palaeologus from the year 1365, attests the fact that there was a Romanian majority of orthodox religion in the city. Books like Octoihul, the ruins of the old church in the centre of the town or the document of Sigismund of Luxemburg from 1428 prove this fact. At the same time a catholic life also existed. It was attested by the document from 1368 which mention that the Franciscans had built a monastery here, like the decision of the Diet of Sighisoara, from the year 1564, concerning the use of the church alternatively by Catholics and Protestants. It must be mentioned that in the 16th century the Romanian reformed Stefan Herce translated the Bible into Romanian language.
As the historian Pesty observes, in the Banat of Severin, most of the inhabitants were orthodox. In 1500, when the roman-catholic bishop Lucaci tries to make the inhabitants of the eight Romanian quarters to pay the catholic taxes, he encounters heavy opposition and cause gets to the King Vladislav II.
The Orthodox Bishopric has a great importance for the history of the city. Its beginnings are lost in the darkness of time, dating probably from the 15th century, when bishop Partenie is remembered. After the annexation of the Banat of Caransebes and Lugoj to the Transylvanian Principality, the situation made some bishops to refugee themselves for some time, on the territory of the eparchy, but in the southern part, occupied by the Turkish, in the city of Varset. The temporary movement of the residence of the Caransebes bishop to Varset is due for the freedom given by the Turkish to the orthodox cult. From there the bishops could oversee better their believers, remained under the rule of the intolerant Calvin. The opinions about the old history of the Bishopric are different, because of the few kept documents. The fact is that, after the Karlowitz peace treaty (1699), the Serbian archbishop, Arsenie Cernoevici, blesses Spiridon Stibita as the bishop of Caransebes and Varset, and in 1759 bishop Ioan Georgeviciu moves the residence from Caransebes to Varset.
In 1865, at the same time with the re-establishing of the Metropolitan church of Ardeal, the old Bishopric of Caransebes was reactivated in the city of Caransebes, because of the great metropolitan bishop Andrei Saguna. The first bishop of the re-established eparchy was the former archpriest of Brasov, Ioan Popasu, installed on the 15th of August 1865 in the old bishop chair. In this period the Diocesan Typography was built (1885), and beginning with the next year the “Diocesan Sheet” was edited the bishop cultural and orthodox news magazine.
The remarkable cultural personality of the bishop Popasu can be seen through the establishing at Caransebes of a theological school, which, from 1865 until now, had an uninterrupted activity. Nicolae Popea (1826–1908) followed, after a short break Miron Cristea (1910–1919) was chosen as the bishop of Caransebes, with a determining role in the act of the Great Union of Alba Iulia and future first patriarch of Romania (1925), then Iosif Traian Badescu (1920–1933), Vasile Lazarescu (1933–1940), the future metropolitan bishop of Banat and Veniamin Nistor. On the 5th of February 1949 the communist regime suppressed abusively the Bishopric of Caransebes, and bishop Veniamin was forced to live the rest of his life with forced residency at Alba Iulia.
Beginning with 1994, the old Bishopric of Caransebes resumes its activity, through Emilian Birdas (1994-1996) and Dr. Laurentiu Streza.
We must remark that, in 1902, the Bishopric of Caransebes had almost 400,000 souls and contained the areas of Caransebes, Biserica Alba, Bocsa Montana, Buzias, Ciacova, Faget, Mehadia, Oravita, Panciova, Lugoj and Varset, having 359 communes with 376 eparchies, and in the city there were two orthodox churches, a catholic church and an Israelite temple. Now, besides these, other places of worship have been built, of Orthodox, Roman-Catholic, Greek-Catholic, Baptist and Pentecostal religion.