Diocese of Bela

For namesakes, see Bela

The Balkanic Diocese of Bela had its episcopal see at the town of Bela, presumably now Velitza, in Bosnia and Hercegovina.

History

From mid tenth to the eleventh century, the Byzantine empire's Notitiae Episcopatuum mention the see of 'Photice or Bela', as suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Naupactus, in the sway of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, thereafter only under the name Bela, testimony that this episcopal see was transferred there from ruined Photice (near Tsiucas) in Greek Epirus.

Its only recorded bishop, Constantinus, is merely known from a tenth century episcopal seal [1].

As the Bulgarian empire annexed Epirus, Bela was transferred to the West Bulgarian province of the (later?) medieval Metropolitan Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Achrida (modern Ochrida, Bulgaria: also a multiple Orthodox see), which became the see of the autocephalous Bulgarian Patriarchate (919-1018) in the late tenth century, but was subjected to Constantinople in 1018, albeit as a 'special' Metropolitanate, allowed by Byzantine emperor Basilius II Bulgaroctonus, from 1018 to 1020, to keep as suffragans all sees of the former Bulgarian Patriarchate, including Bela, with Ochrid only thereafter becoming a regular ecclesiastical province in the say of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and remaining so after the Great Oriental Schism (Catholic-Orthodox break-up) in 1054. Bela again became suffragan of Naupactus in thirteenth century [2], transferred to the Archdiocese of Ioannina in the fifteenth.

Titular see

It faded, but was nominally restored in 1933 as a Latin Catholic titular bishopric.

It has had the following incumbents, so far of the fitting Episcopal (lowest) rank :[3]

  • José Alves Martins (1935.11.15 – death 1950.04.14) as emeritate, previously Bishop of Santiago de Cabo Verde (Cape Verde) (1910.03.10 – 1935.11.15)
  • Bernardo Arango Henao, Jesuits (S.J.) (1950.04.18 – 1962.10.27), while first and last Apostolic Vicar of Barrancabermeja (Colombia) (1950.04.18 – 1962.10.27), promoted first Bishop of the same Roman Catholic Diocese of Barrancabermeja (1962.10.27 – retired 1983.12.23); previously Bishop-Prelate of Barrancabermeja's precursor Territorial Prelature of Río Magdalena (1947 – 1950.04.18); died 1993.
  • Gerard William Tickle (1963.10.12 – death 1994.09.14), while Military Vicar of Great Britain (UK) (1963.10.12 – 1978.04.24) and on emeritate
  • Gerald Frederick Kicanas (1995.03.20 – 2001.10.30), while Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago (Illinois, USA) (1995.03.20 – 2001.10.30); later Coadjutor Bishop of Tucson (Arizona, USA) (2001.10.30 – 2003.03.07), succeeding as Bishop of the same Tucson (2003.03.07 – ...), also President of United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (2007.11.13 – 2010.11.16)
  • Santiago Silva Retamales (2002.02.16 – 2015.07.07), while Auxiliary Bishop of Valparaíso (Chile) (2002.02.16 – 2015.07.07); later Secretary General of Latin American Episcopal Council (2011.05.19 – 2015.05.15), Military Ordinary of Chile (2015.07.07 – ...), President of Episcopal Conference of Chile (2016.11.11 – ...)
  • Ricardo Orlando Seirutti (2015.11.07 – ...), Auxiliary Bishop of Córdoba (Argentina); no previous prelature

See also

References

  1. ↑ Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art, vol. II, 1994, pp. 15-16
  2. ↑ Hieroclis Synecdemus et notitiae graecae episcopatuum, editor Gustav Parthey, Berlin 1866, p. 218, nº 622.
  3. ↑ http://www.gcatholic.org/dioceses/former/t0288.htm GCatholic
Bibliography
  • Raymond Janin, lemma 'Belle' in Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques, vol. VII, 1934, col. 794

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