Diocese of Lucera–Troia

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The Roman Catholic diocese of Lucera-Troia has its episcopal see in Lucera (southern Italy). It is heir to several other neighbouring former sees, not only Troia which has a co-cathedral, but also Farentino, Tortiboli and Montecorvino, which had before been united with Volturaria.

The Cathedral of Lucera.

[edit] Ecclesiastical history

Local tradition traces the origin of the to the third century (St. Bassus). The first historically certain bishop is Marcus (c. 743). Among other noteworthy bishops were Nicolò, papal legate at the Byzantine capital Constantinople in 1261; the Dominican Agostino Gasotti (1318), formerly Archbishop of Zagabria; Tommaso de Acerno (1378), author of De creatione Urbani VI opusculum; Scipione Bozzuti (1582), killed in a sack of the city by some exiles in 1591.

In 1391 the Diocese of Lucera was increased by the addition of that of Farentino, or Castel Fiorentino, a city founded in 1015 by the Byzantine catapan Basileios. It was the place of Emperor Frederick II's death.

After 1409 the diocese of Tortiboli -created before 1236- was united to Lucera. However it remains a titular diocese by its Latin name of Tortibulum; since 2001 it has an Asian incumbent, Joseph Vu Duy Thong, Auxiliary Bishop of Thành-Phô Hô Chí Minh in Vietnam (usually it's the other way around, a European titular bishop in a predominantly non-Catholic country outside Europe)

Finally in 1818, the united Dioceses of Montecorvino and Vulturaria were added to Lucera. Montecorvino became an episcopal see in the tenth century, and among its bishops was St. Albert (died 1037); Montecorvino would later be assigned as a titular archbishopric. Montecorvino's union with Vulturaria, a town now almost deserted, took place in 1433; it would however also repeatedly be assigned as a titular diocese. Noteworthy among the later bishops was Alessandro Gerardini d'Amelia (1496), a Latin poet, author of many historical, educational and moral works and one of the chief supporters of the expedition of Christopher Columbus; in 1515 he was transferred to San Domingo in America, where he died in 1521.

The resulting diocese of Lucera had in the early 20th century 17 parishes with 75,000 souls; 4 religious houses of men and 6 of women; 1 school for boys and 3 for girls.

In March 1908, the Diocese of Troia was united with Lucera.

On September 30, 1986 it was renamed the diocese of Lucera–Troia, as a suffragan of the also renamed Metropolitan Archdiocese of Foggia – Bovino (only promoted as archbishopric of Foggia in 1979). Both its cathedral in Lucera and its co-cathedral in Troia have the rank of minor basilica.