Diocese of Teurnia

The diocese of Teurnia (or Tiburnia) was a Chalcedonian Christian church in the Roman province of Noricum during the 5th through 7th centuries. It is today a titular see in the Catholic Church.

Bishop's church in Teurnia.
Mosaic in the "Cemetery Church", discovered 1908

Ancient diocese

There was a Christian population in Teurnia by the 4th century. Several Norican bishops—not identified by see—attended the council of Serdica in 343. They were of the Chalcedonian persuasion and subject to the ecclesiastical province of Aquileia. The first identifiable church, the Friedhofskirche, was built shortly after 400.[1] Another church was built in the refuge castle, and the whole diocese of Teurnia was dotted with such castles.[2]

A bishopric existed at Teurnia at least from the time of Severinus of Noricum (active in Noricum in 460–482), as attested in Eugippius's Vita sancti Severini (511). The cathedral was probably the church on the Holzerberg. There are numerous references to bishops of Teurnia from the 6th century.[3] It is unclear if the bishop of Teurnia was the metropolitan archbishop of the province of Noricum Mediterraneum, of which Teurnia was the metropolis, or even if he was the metropolitan of both Noricums.[4]

In 473, Severinus warned the bishop of Teurnia, Paulinus, of a coming barbarian attack, allowing the bishop to organize the defence of his city.[5][6] Around 540, Teurnia was under Frankish control and a Frankish bishop was appointing priests there.[7] The last mention of the city and diocese of Teurnia is from 591 in a letter of the Venetic and Rhaetic bishops.

Residential bishops of Teurnia

(incomplete)

  • Paulinus (473)
  • Leonianus (579?)

Titular see

In 1968, the archdiocese was nominally restored as metropolitan titular archbishopric of Tiburnia (in both Latin and Curiate Italian).

It has had the following incumbents, most of archiepiscopal rank, with episcopal exception:

References
  1. Géza Alföldy, Noricum (Routledge, 1974), p. 210.
  2. Alföldy, Noricum, pp. 216–217.
  3. Alföldy, Noricum, p. 280.
  4. Veit Rosenberger, "The Saint and the Bishop: Severinus of Noricum", in Johan Leemans, Shawn W. J. Keough, Peter Van Nuffelen and Carla Nicolaye (eds.), Episcopal Elections in Late Antiquity (DeGruyter, 2011), p. 213.
  5. Wolf Liebeschuetz, "The End of the Ancient City", in John Rich (ed.), The City in Late Antiquity (Routledge, 1992), p. 15.
  6. Richard A. Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity (University of California Press, 1997), p. 245.
  7. Matthias Hardt, "The Bavarians", in Hans-Werner Goetz, Jörg Jarnut and Walter Pohl (eds.), Regna and Gentes: The Relationship Between Late Antique and Early Medieval Peoples and Kingdoms in the Transformation of the Roman World (Brill, 2003), p. 438n.

Further reading
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