Diocese of Lydda

The Diocese of Lydda is one of the oldest and most significant Bishoprics of the early Christian Church in the Holy Land, faded under Persian and Arab-Islamic rule, was revived by the Crusaders and remains a Latin Catholic titular see.

St Georges Church Lydda.

Founded in the 1st century, there has been a Bishop of Lydda continuously since.

Ancient history and bishopric

In early Christian times, Lydda (today El-Ludd (Arabic) or again Lod) was a prosperous Jewish town, located on the intersection of the North – South and the Egypt to Babylon roads, it was made wealthy on the trade that passed through it.

According to the Bible Lod was founded by Semed of the Israelite Tribe of Benjamin; Some of its inhabitants were led into Babylonian exile, part of them returned, but by mid second century, the king of Syria gave it to the Maccabees, who kept control until the arrival of Roman conqueror Pompei in Judea. Flavius Josephus confirms Julius Caesar gave it in 48 BC to the Hebrews, but Cassius sold the population in 44 BC, Marc Anthony released them two years later. The city saw Roman civil wars and Hebrew revolts in the first century, was officially renamed Diospolis, but remained popularly known as Lod or Lydda.

It harbored Christian since the Apostle Petrus preached there and cured the paralytic Eneas. It was a natural point to establish a church, which was already established when Saint Peter visited the city between 31–36AD.[1] By 120AD most of its inhabitants were Christian. The episcopal see was established allegedly by the first Byzantine emperor Constantin the Great, as suffragan of the Archdiocese of Caesarea in Palestina, in the sway of the original Patriarchate of Jerusalem. In December 415, the Council of Diospolis was held in the bishopric to try British monk Pelagius; he was acquitted but his heresy Pelagianism condemned. The earliest historically recorded bishop is Aëtius, a friend of Arius.

The city was renamed Georgiopolis after local martyr St George, patron saint of England was born in the town and buried on the site of the basilica of Georgius, first mentioned about 530 by pilgrim Theodosius.

It suffered gravely under pagan Persian border incursions and faded at the advent of Arab Muslims.

Byzantine Suffragan Bishops of Lydda/ Diopolis/ Georgiopolis

Latin Crusader bishopric

In 1099, during the triumphant First Crusade (1096–1099), Lydda and Arab neighbour town Ramla were assigned to Robert, a Norman known after his natal diocese Rouen (in Normandy, France, were conquering Vikings were christianized only a few generations), who was installed as virtual prince-bishop, wielding temporal feudal power as well as religious jurisdiction, obliged to supply a cavalry contingent to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.

In 1110 civil jurisdiction over Ramla was spit off as a separate Lordship of Ramla, vested in Baldwin.

Saint George's church was burned by Muslim in 1099, but rebuild larger, shifted to the northeast, in the 12th century by the Crusaders as Latin cathedral, but again destroyed by Saracens in 1191, in the fight against English crusader king Richard Lionheart, the patron saint of both knighthood and England being of great significance to his troops.


Latin Suffragan Bishops of Lydda

Titular Latin bishopric

Bishop John Monaghan
Lawrence Shehan
Bp William Shomali
Dom Grammont

As the Crusader kingdom fell to Saladin, Lydda was truly in partibus infidelium. From the 15th century, it was a Latin titular bishopric both under the names Lydda and Diospolis in Palaestina, with a messy proliferation of titular incumbents the next century with up to eleven titular bishops 'on' the see of Lydda.

Titular Bishops of Lydda/ Diospolis
BIOS TO ELABORATE

See also

References

  1. ↑ Book of Acts, 9:32-35.
  2. ↑ Michel Le Quien, Oriens christianus, page 872.
  3. ↑ Patrum Nicaenorum nomina p13.
  4. ↑ Richard Price, Michael Gaddis, The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, Volume 1 (Liverpool University Press, 2005) p360.
  5. ↑ Dr Marwan Nader, Burgesses and Burgess Law in the Latin Kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus (1099–1325), p132
  6. ↑ Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus: Volume 2, L-Z (excluding Tyre) (Cambridge University Press, 1993) p11.
  7. ↑ Malcolm Barber, The Crusader States (Yale University Press, 2012)
  8. ↑ Malcolm Barber, The Crusader States (Yale University Press, 2012)
  9. ↑ Kenneth Meyer Setton, Robert Lee Wolff, Harry W. Hazard, A History of the Crusades, Volume 2 (Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1969) p 536
  10. ↑ http://www.gcatholic.org/dioceses/former/t1021.htm
  11. ↑ The bishop of Lydda Consecration at Westminster cathedral The Tablet Page 14
  12. ↑ David M. Cheney, 1996–2016 Catholic hierarchy

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