Archdiocese of Brindisi-Ostuni
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The Italian Catholic archdiocese of Brindisi-Ostium, in Apulia, has carried its present name since 1986. It is a suffragan of the archdiocese of Lecce.
The historical archdiocese of Brindisi was promoted from a diocese in the tenth century. The territory of the diocese of Ostuni was added to it in 1821. The archdiocese lost its status as metropolitan see in 1980.[1]
[edit] History
According to a local legend, the first Bishop of Brindisi was St. Leucius, about 165, who later underwent martyrdom. There is no historical proof for early beginnings of Christianity, except the account given by Arnobius of the fall of Simon Magus, who according to him withdrew to Brindisi and cast himself from a high rock into the sea.
The Diocese of Brindisi at first embraced the territory comprised within the present diocese of Oria. In the tenth century, after Brindisi had been destroyed by the Saracens, the bishops took up their abode at Oria, on account of its greater security. In 1591, after the death of Bishop Bernardino di Figueroa, Oria was made the seat of a new diocese.
In the reorganization of the dioceses of the Kingdom of Naples in 1818 Brindisi was combined with the Diocese of Ostuni, formerly its suffragan.
Brindisi has been an archiepiscopal see since the tenth century. The ancient cathedral was located outside the city, but in 1140 Roger II, King of Sicily and Naples, built the present cathedral in the centre of the city.
Among the bishops of Brindisi were:
- St. Aproculus (Proculus), who died in 352 at Ardea, when returning from Rome, and was buried at Anzio;
- St. Cyprian, who died in 364;
- Andrea, murdered by the Saracens in 979;
- Eustachio (1060), the first to bear the title of archbishop;
- Guglielmo (1173), author of a life of St. Leucius;
- Girolamo Aleandro (1524), humanist, and papal nuncio in Germany in connection with Luther's Reformation, and later Cardinal;
- Pietro Caraffa, Bishop of Chieti, and afterwards Pope Paul IV, for some time the Apostolic administrator of this diocese;
- Francesco Aleandro (1542);
- G. Bovio, from Bologna, who translated the works of Gregory of Nyssa, and was at the Council of Trent;
- Paolo de Vilanaperlas (1716);
- Andrea Maddalena (1724), who restored the cathedral after it had been damaged by the earthquake of 1743.[2]
[edit] Notes
This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
