Furnos Maior and Furnos Minor

Furnos was the name of two towns and bishoprics in the Roman province of Proconsular Africa (in present-day Tunisia). They are referred to as Furnos Maior and Furnos Minor, as now as separate Latin Catholic titular sees.

Location

The ruins of Furnos Minor are at Henchir-El-Msaadine, near Tebourba (Ancient bishopric Thuburbo Minus).

Furnos Maior may have been at what is now Aïn-Fournou or Aïn-Fourna, more distant from Carthage.[1][2]

History

Each was important enough to became a suffragan bishopric of the African provincial capital's Metropolitan Archbishop of Carthage.

The towns and the bishoprics disappeared after the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, but their dioceses have been revived as titular sees.[1]

There are records of early bishops of one or other of the two sees. Third-century Geminius died shortly before Saint Cyprian; a Donatist Florentinus attended a conference in 411; and a Simeon was at the 525 Council of Carthage. Simeon belonged to Furnos Maior, but it is uncertain of which town the other two were bishops.[2][3]

Victor of Vita recounts that in the persecution by the Vandals of Genseric in 430 or 431 Bishop Mansuetus of Urusi was martyred by being burned alive at the gate of Urusi known as the Porta Fornitana, the 'Furnos Gate'.[4]

Titular see of Furnos Maior

The diocese was nominally restored as a Latin Catholic titular bishopric in 1914 under the name Furnos Majus (or Maius), which was changed to Furni Majus in 1925, Furnos Maior (or Major) in 1929, Fornos Major in 1933, ultimately Furnos Maior again in 1971.

It has had the following incumbents, all of the lowest (episcopal) rank :

Titular see of Furnos Minor

It was nominally revived as a titular bishopric in 1933 and has had the following incumbents, of the lowest (episcopal, usually) and once intermediary (archiepiscopal) ranks :

References

  1. 1 2 Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), "Sedi titolari", p. 897
  2. 1 2 Noël Duval, Marcel Cintas, "Basiliques et mosaïques funéraires de Furnos Minus" in Mélanges de l'École française de Rome. Antiquité, Volume 90 (1978), Issue 90-2, pp. 874-875
  3. ↑ Siméon Vailhé, "Furni" in Catholic Encyclopedia (New York 1909)
  4. ↑ John Moorhead (translator), History of the Vandal Persecution (Liverpool University Press 1992 ISBN 978-0-85323127-1), p. 6

Sources and External links

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