Iria Flavia

Iria Flavia or simply Iria in Galicia, northwestern Spain, is an Ancient settlement and former bishopric in the modern municipality of Padrón, which remains a Catholic titular see.

Located at the confluence of the Sar and Ulla rivers, Iria was a port city, the main seat of the Celtic Capori tribe, on the road between Braga and Astorga. The Romans rebuilt the road as via XVIII or Via Nova and refounded the Celtiberian port as Iria Flavia ("Flavian Iria") to compliment Roman emperor Vespasian.

King Juan Carlos of Spain granted the illustrious resident, writer Camilo José Cela, the title of Marqués de Iria Flavia.

No later then 561, perhaps from 400 AD, Iria was the seat of a bishopric, also known in Latin as Locus Sancti Iacobi ('place of Saint James', in Spanish Santiago), that became a suffragan of the (Portuguese) Metropolitan of the Archdiocese of Braga and shared its seat with (Santiago de) Compostela, which developed into Iberia's major pilgrimage destination (rivalling Rome and Jerusalem) then moved there in 1095. The modern city on the site of Iria Flava is Padrón.

The followers of the executed bishop Priscillian of Avila were deeply embedded in the culture of Iberia's northwest. To restore Catholic orthodoxy in the Visigothic marches that were recovered from the Kingdom of the Suebi (Galicia) in a series of campaigns during the years leading up to 585, nine dioceses were established in Galicia, including Iria Flavia, mentioned in the document Parroquial suevo (ca 572–582); the Parroquial divides the region into dioceses and marks the first definitive integration of this zone in the monarchy of the Visigoths, who had been catholicized from Arianism in 587 (Quiroga and Lovell 1999). The list of the bishops of Iria present at councils and noted in other sources begins in the sixth century with an Andreas and gains historic credibility in the seventh [1]. No commercial or political rationale for siting a bishop at Iria Flavia seems to present itself, though excavations have identified a cult sanctuary dating to the second half of the sixth century (Quiroga and Lovelle 1999). The relics that were identified with Saint James the Greater and which were transferred to Compostela may originally have determined the location of the diocese at Iria, to control the already sanctified site.

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