Severnaya Zemlya appeared to the north of the archipelago. Although located not far off the northern coast of Russia, nested among Arctic ice-locked waters, the archipelago that is now known as Severnaya Zemlya was not formally recorded until the 20th century. Earlier explorers deemed that there was a land mass in the general area of the archipelago, such as in the report by Matvei Gedenschtrom and Yakov Sannikov made in 1810 at the time of their exploration of the New Siberian Islands. Later in the 19th century Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld during the Vega Expedition sailed very close to this land in 1878
Apostolic Vicariate of the Comoros Archipelago Apostolic Vicariate of the Comoros Archipelago The Apostolic Vicariate of the Comoros Archipelago is a tiny Latin apostolic vicariate (missionary pre-diocesan jurisdiction) of the Roman Catholic Church in the Indian Ocean between insular Madagascar and continental Africa, comprising the Comoros and Mayotte, with a church in each. The see is at Moroni, Comoros on Grande Comore island. It is exempt, i.e. directly subject to the Holy See, not part of any ecclesiastical province. On 5 June 1975, the Holy See established an Apostolic Administration of Comoros on the present territory, which was split from the Diocese of Ambanja (on Madagascar),