Roman Catholic Diocese of Biella
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Diocese of Biella Dioecesis Bugellensis |
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Biella Cathedral
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| Location | |
| Country | Italy |
| Ecclesiastical province | Vercelli |
| Statistics | |
| Area | 900 km2 (350 sq mi) |
| Population - Total - Catholics |
(as of 2012) 176,500 (est.) 164,000 (est.) (92.9%) |
| Parishes | 114 |
| Information | |
| Denomination | Catholic Church |
| Rite | Roman Rite |
| Established | 1 June 1772 |
| Cathedral | Cattedrale di S. Stefano |
| Secular priests | 125 (diocesan) 41 (religious Orders) |
| Current leadership | |
| Pope | Francis |
| Bishop | Gabriele Mana |
| Map | |
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| Website | |
| www.diocesi.biella.it | |
The Diocese of Biella (Latin: Dioecesis Bugellensis) is a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical territory in northern Italy, created in 1772. It is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Vercelli. Biella is a city in Piedmont.
Until 1772 Biella was under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Vercelli. In that year Pope Clement XI, at the request of Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia, established the Diocese of Biella by the papal bull Praecipua.
The first bishop was Giulio Cesare Viancini, formerly Archbishop of Sassari in Sardinia. In 1803 Napoleon suppressed the diocese, which again fell under the jurisdiction of Vercelli, but was re-established in 1817 by Pope Pius VII who appointed as bishop the Observant Franciscan, Bernardino Bollati.
In the shrine of Maria Santissima d'Oropa, situated on a mountain near Biella, the diocese preserves a memorial of St. Eusebius of Vercelli, who was banished to the Orient by Emperor Constantius for his defence of Catholicism against Arianism. St. Eusebius, according to tradition, upon his return from the East, is said to have brought three pictures of the Madonna painted on cedar wood, one of which, the image of Oropa, he placed in a small oratory he had built. In the tenth century the chapel was placed in charge of the Benedictines. When they abandoned the place, Pope Pius II, in 1459, made over the shrine to the Chapter of the Collegiate Church of San Stefano, now the Biella Cathedral, to which it has since belonged. In the sixteenth century, the inhabitants of Biella, in thanksgiving for their deliverance from the plague, built a church over the chapel. In the seventeenth century construction of the devotional complex known as the Sacro Monte di Oropa began.
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Wikipedia