The Diocese of Segorbe-Castellón (Latin, Segobiensis; Castellionensis, Valencian: Diòcesi de Sogorb-Castelló) is a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical territory located in north-eastern Spain, in the province of Castellón, part of the autonomous community of Valencia. The diocese forms part of the ecclesiastical province of Valencia, and is thus suffragan to the Archdiocese of Valencia.
In 1912 the diocese was bounded on the north by Castellón and Teruel, on the east by Castellón, on the south by Valencia, and on the west by Valencia and Teruel, had its jurisdiction in the civil Provinces of Castellón, Valencia, Teruel and Cuenca.
The cathedral of Segorbe, once a mosque, has been completely rebuilt in such a manner that it preserves no trace of Arab architecture. It is connected by a bridge with the old episcopal palace. Its time-stained tower and its cloister are built on a trapezoidal ground-plan. The church was reconsecrated in 1534, and in 1795 the nave was lengthened, and new altars added, in the episcopate of Lorenzo Gómez de Haedo.
The seminary is in the Jesuit college given by king Carlos III. The convents of the Dominicans, Franciscans, the Augustinian nuns, and the Charterhouse (Cartuja) of Valdecristo have been converted to secular uses.
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No name of any Bishop of Segorbe is known earlier than Proculus, who signed in the Third Council of Toledo (589). Porcarius assisted at the Council of Gundemar (610); Antonius, at the Fourth Council of Toledo (633); Floridius, at the seventh (646); Eusicius, at the ninth (655) and tenth (656); Memorius, at the eleventh (675) and twelfth (681); Olipa, at the thirteenth (683); Anterius at the fifteenth (688) and sixteenth (693).
After this there are no information of its bishops until the Arab invasion, when its church was converted into a mosque.
In 1172 Pedro Ruiz de Azagra, son of the Lord of Estella, took the city of Albarracín, and succeeded in establishing there a bishop (Martín), who took the title of Arcabricense, and afterwards that of Segobricense, thinking that Albarracín was nearer to the ancient Segobriga (Segorbe) than to Ercavica or Arcabrica.
This choice of name follows the ideology of the Reconquest, according to which the bishops were simply restoring the old Christian entities only temporarily taken over by the Moors. In this way, the city of Albarracín became the seat of the bishops of Segorbe.
When Segorbe was conquered by king James I of Aragon in 1245, its church was purified, and Jimeno, Bishop of Albarracín, took possession of it. The bishops of Valencia opposed this, and Arnau of Peralta, Bishop of Valencia, entered the church of Segorbe by force of arms. The controversy being referred to Rome, and the bishops of Segorbe had part of their territory restored to them; but the Schism of the West supervened, and the status quo continued.
In 1571 Francisco Soto Salazar being bishop, the Diocese of Albarracín was separated from Segorbe.
Eminent among the bishops of Segorbe was Juan Bautista Pérez Rubert, who exposed the fraudulent chronicles. In modern times Domingo Canubio y Alberto, the Dominican, and Francisco Aguilar, author of various historical works, are worthy of mention.
In 1912 the city of Castellón de la Plana, though the capital of the province of Castellón, had no episcopal see: by the Concordat of 1851 the See of Tortosa, to which diocese a large part of the province belonged, was to be transferred to it.
In 1960 the see became the Diocese of Segorbe-Castellón. Following the De mutatione finium Dioecesium Valentinae-Segorbicensis-Dertotensis decree, of 31 May 1960, the parishes belonging to the Province of València were dismembered and aggregated to the Archdiocese of Valencia. On the other hand the Nules, Vila-real, Castelló de la Plana, Lucena and Albocàsser parishes that had belonged to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tortosa were aggreagted to the Diocese of Segorbe-Castellón along with the parish of Betxí. Francoist propaganda presented the changes as an occasion for rejoicing.
See suppressed (unknown - 1173)
Bishops of Segorbe with seat in Albarracín. All the names are given in Spanish:
All the names are given in Spanish:
This article draws from other Wikipedia articles and these two sources:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.
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