Roman Catholic Diocese of Tropea

By 594, a diocese was established as the Diocese of Meria or Myria. Pope Gregory I wrote to his notary in Reggio that the archdeacon Leo and the other clergy should assemble in their church of Myreia and elect a bishop, who, once consecrated, should receive the property of the church. The property was in the hands of Bishop Dono of Messana.[3]

The Diocese of Tropea is first heard of in 649, when Bishop Joannes attended the Roman council of Pope Martin I.[4]

The Diatyposis of the Emperor Leo VI (c. 900) lists the Greek Metropolitan of Reggio and his suffragans: the dioceses of Vibona, Tauriana, Locri, Rossano, Squillace, Tropea, Amantea, Cotrone, Cosenza, Nicotera, Bisignano, Nicastro and Cassano.[5]

In 902, Tropea gained territory from the suppressed Diocese of Nicotera.

In 1059, the diocese lost territory to establish Diocese of Nicotera. In 1094, the diocese gained territory from the suppressed Diocese of Amantea.[6]

In 1165, Pope Alexander III confirmed the privileges of the archbishops of Reggio Calabria, previously granted by Pope Gregory VII and Eugenius III naming Tropea as one of its suffragan dioceses.[7]

On 15 March 1179, Pope Alexander III, in the bull "Ideo sumus", confirmed for Bishop Coridonius, all the rights and privileges belonging to the Church of Tropea.[8] The privileges were confirmed again by Pope Innocent III in a bull of 16 November 1200.[9]

In 1296, Bishop Jordanus Ruffus (1272–1296) established the first convent of Franciscans in Tropea.[10]

The diocese lost territory to Archdiocese of Cosenza and Diocese of Nicastro

On 29 January 1523, Pope Clement VII confirmed the establishment of a Dominican convent in Tropea. He did so with considerable annoyance, having been presented with a fait accompli, in the face of a bull of Pope Boniface VIII, prohibiting the establishment of institutions by any of the mendicant orders without papal license.[11] The project had been initiated by Petrus Paulus Bonsaulis and Benedictus Guoarnes of Troia, who were the patrons of the church of S. Maria de Recomodata, immediately outside the walls of the city, and of the hospital next to it; the two patrons were illegally usurping the income of the parish and the hospital, and ruling them without ecclesiastical license. After some time, their guilty consciences prompted them to make amends. When their accomplice the parish priest died, they applied to the bishop to provide a new priest, which he did, and the patrons ceased their illegal usurpations. To preserve the institutions which they had despoiled, they decided to have both the parish and the hospital turned over to some religious order, the Augustinians or the Dominicans, with the cooperation of the bishop. They approached Frater Thomas, the Vicar General of the Dominicans in Calabria, resident in Mileto, with whom they entered into an agreement, which recognized the lay patronage in the form of an annual money payment to the two patrons and their heirs, and granted the Dominicans full rights of governance as well as the right to build a convent;[12] the agreement was registered in the offices of the bishop. Despite his outrage at the illegal proceedings, which he recited in extreme detail, Pope Clement granted his permission.[13]

Pope Clement VII, in the Concordat of 1529, granted the Emperor Charles V and his successors the patronage over the dioceses of Reggio, Cassano, Cotrone, and Tropea.[14] Cardinal Vincenzo Lauro (1523–1592) was a native of Tropea.[15]

In 1600, the Jesuits founded a college in Tropea, thanks to the efforts of a patrician of Tropea, Girolamo Tauli, who travelled to Naples to negotiate with the Provincial of the Neapolitan province of the Jesuits.[16] In 1649, there were twenty colleges in the Jesuit province of Naples, but at Tropea, though there were twelve Jesuits in residence, only one of them taught.[17]

Cathedral

Tropea, the cathedral

The cathedral of Tropea was dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. It was administered by a corporation, the Chapter, which included six dignities (the Dean, the Archdeacon, the Cantor, the Treasurer, the Archpriest, and the Penitentiary) and eighteen other canons.[18]

Bishop Fabrizio Caracciolo (1615–1626) presided over a diocesan synod in 1618. In the records of the synod, he mentions that the seminary of Tropea was already in existence.[19]

The famous Jesuit, Athanasius Kircher, happened to be in Tropea, intending to lodge at the Jesuit college, when the earthquake of 1638 took place; before his eyes, the college and many of the other buildings began falling, and he returned unsteadily to the shore and boarded his boat, while the shocks continued; he wrote of "universal ruin,' as he left the "seat of desolation".[20] On 2 October 1687, Tropea was the center of a major Calabrian earthquake. There was a great deal of damage to structures, but no reports of loss of life.[21] In May 1783, there were a number of earthquakes throughout Calabria. At Tropea, there were twenty deaths and sixty injuries reported. The cathedral was severely damaged.[22] Earthquakes in 1905 and 1908 again damaged the Norman cathedral.[23]

Bishop Felix de Paù (1751–1782) had the resources of the defunct Basilian monastery of S. Michele Archangelo transferred to the use of the diocesan seminary, following the death of the last Abbot Commendatory, Saverio Dattilo, in 1768.[24]

On 27 June 1818, the dioceses of Nicastro and Tropea were united aeque personaliter as the diocese of Nicastro e Tropea, by Pope Pius VII.[25]

On September 30, 1986 the diocese of Tropea was suppressed, and its territory united to the Diocese of Mileto–Nicotera–Tropea.[26]

Erected: 7th Century

• Bishops of Nicotera e Tropea (1818–1986)