Archdiocese of Amalfi-Cava de' Tirreni

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The Archdiocese of Amalfi-Cava de' Tirreni is a Roman Catholic archbishopric, which has its archepiscopal see at Amalfi, not far from Naples. Originally simply "Archdiocese of Amalfi", on 1986-09-30 it was officially renamed as Archdiocese of Amalfi–Cava de′ Tirreni.

The Duomo of Amalfi

It was exempt, i.e. directly dependent on the Holy See, but is now a suffragan in the ecclesiastical province of Salerno – Campagna – Acerno, under the primatial see of the Metropolitan archbishop of Salerno.

The current titular is Orazio Soricelli.

[edit] History

The early beginnings of Amalfi are very obscure; it is not known when it was founded, or when Christianity reached it. That it was early is a reasonable conjecture, considering the facilities for communication with the East which the South of Italy possessed.

The first positive indication that Amalfi was a Christian community is supplied by pope Gregory the Great, who wrote in January 596 to the Subdeacon Antemius, his legate and administrator in Campania, ordering him to constrain within a monastery Primenus, Bishop of Amalfi, because he did not remain in his diocese, but roamed about (Reg., V, xiv; cf. Jaffé, RR.PP., 1403). The regular list of bishops began in 829.

It was raised to an archbishopric by pope John XV in 987. In 1206, after the completion of the cathedral of St. Andrew, the body of the Apostle of that name, patron saint of Amalfi, was brought there from Constantinople by Pietro, cardinal of Capua, an Amalfitan.