Diocese of Matera
|
Archdiocese of Matera-Irsina Archidioecesis Materanensis-Montis Pelusii |
|
|---|---|
|
|
| Location | |
| Country | Italy |
| Ecclesiastical province | Potenza-Muro Lucano-Marsico Nuovo |
| Statistics | |
| Area | 2,020 km2 (780 sq mi) |
| Population - Total - Catholics |
(as of 2013) 144,644 140,000 (96.8%) |
| Parishes | 55 |
| Information | |
| Denomination | Catholic Church |
| Rite | Roman Rite |
| Established | 2 July 1954 (62 years ago) |
| Cathedral | Basilica Cattedrale di S. Maria Assunta della Bruna (Matera) |
| Co-cathedral | Concattedrale di S. Maria Assunta (Irsina) |
| Secular priests | 98 |
| Current leadership | |
| Pope | Francis |
| Archbishop | Antonio Giuseppe Caiazzo |
| Website | |
| www.webdiocesi.chiesacattolica.it | |
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Matera-Irsina (Latin: Archidioecesis Materanensis-Montis Pelusii) in Basilicata, Italy, has existed under this name since 1986. The archbishop is seated at Matera Cathedral. (Irsina Cathedral is a co-cathedral). It is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Potenza-Muro Lucano-Marsico Nuovo.
The Archbishop, since 2004, had been Archbishop Salvatore Ligorio; but on Monday, October 5, 2015, he was elevated by Pope Francis to be Metropolitan Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Potenza-Muro Lucano-Marsico Nuovo (in Potenza, Italy), to whose province the Archdiocese of Matera-Irsina (in Matera, Italy, and Irsina, Italy) belongs. It is not the norm, but by no means irregular (especially in historically very Catholic countries like Italy) to have a non-metropolitan archdiocese either under a metropolitan archdiocese, as is the case here, or to have non-metropolitan archdioceses be subject directly to the Pope (though the latter is increasingly more rare, since the former is now the preferred method of governance).
The Diocese of Matera was originally a separate diocese. Its origins are not well documented. Apart from an unreliable reference to a bishop at Matera in 482, the first evidence of the bishops here dates from 968, when the Patriarch of Constantinople ordered the diocese of Matera, with several other dioceses of the region, to be subordinated to the Archdiocese of Otranto and the Byzantine Rite.
The diocese of Matera was combined by a papal bull of Pope Innocent III of 4 May 1203 with the Archdiocese of Acerenza to form the Archdiocese of Acerenza and Matera, and the building of the present Matera Cathedral on the site of the church of Saint Eustace began in the same year.
...
Wikipedia