Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Evora
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The Portuguese Catholic archdiocese of Évora has Évora Cathedral as its see. It has as suffragans the diocese of Beja and diocese of Faro.[1]
[edit] History
Évora was raised to archiepiscopal rank in 1544, at which time it was given as suffragans the diocese of Leiria and diocese of Portalegre; in 1570 and later were added the diocese of Sylves, diocese of Ceuta, diocese of Congo, diocese of Santo Thomé, diocese of Funchal, diocese of Cabo Verde, and diocese of Angra.
Its bishop, Quintianus, was present at the Council of Elvira early in the fourth century. There exists no complete list of his successors for the next two centuries, though some are known from ancient diptychs. In 584 the Visigothic king, Leovirgild, incorporated with his state the Kingdom of the Suevi, to which Evora had hitherto belonged. From the sixth and seventh centuries there remain a few Christian inscriptions pertaining to Evora. In one of them has been interpolated the name of a Bishop Julian (1 December, 566); he is, however, inadmissible. Thenceforth the episcopal list is known from the reign of Reccared (586) to the Arab invasion (714), after which the succession is quite unknown for four centuries and a half, with the exception of the epitaph of a Bishop Daniel (January, 1100).
Until the reconquest (1166) by Alfonso I of Portugal, Evora was suffragan to the archdiocese of Mérida. Under this king it became suffragan to the archdiocese of Braga, despite the protests of the Archbishops of Compostella, administrators of Mérida. In 1274, however, the latter succeeded in bringing Evora within their jurisdiction. Finally, it became suffragan to the archdiocese of Lisbon from 1394 to 1544, when it was made an archbishopric. I
Among its archbishops were:
- Henry of Portugal (1540-64, 1578-80), the founder of its university and King of Portugal (1578-80)
- Teutonio de Braganza (1570-1602)
- the scholarly writers Alfonso de Portugal (1486-1522) and Father Manuel de Cenaculo Villasboas (1802-14).
Portuguese writers have maintained that the first bishop of Evora was St. Mantius, a Roman, and a disciple of Jesus Christ, sent by the Apostles into Spain as a missionary of the Gospel.[2]
[edit] Notes
This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
