AVELLINO, DIOCESE OF. - In Irpinia, in the province of A. Divided into 50 parishes, it has 124 diocesan priests and 27 regular clergy; 120,000 inhabitants, all Catholic (1948). The patron saint of the diocese is St. Modestinus.
The ancient Abellinum, a Samnite station of the Hirpini, is mentioned by Frontinus among the Roman colonies whose territory was assigned to veterans. It declined with the barbarian invasions, only to rise again in the 9th century in a nearby location, at the foot of Monte Vergine, above which the homonymous sanctuary was built (1119) on the ruins of a temple of Cybele. The ruins of the ancient city attest to its grandeur and level of civilization. In 1130, in A., a meeting took place between the antipope Anacletus and Duke Roger, from which arose the constitution of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Innocent II and Emperor Lothair, allied, reconquered (1137) Naples and Campania and, having taken up residence in A., elected there a new duke of Apulia and Calabria in the person of Ranulf, count of A. But Roger, having landed at Salerno, took and sacked the city, making the Pope prisoner. A. later obtained recognition of its conquests and of royal dignity. In 1586 the Royal Chamber of Naples alienated its lordship to the Caracciolo family.
Two ancient Christian centers exist in the diocese of A.: Atripalda and Prata. In Atripalda was the cemetery of ancient Abellinum. There the martyr Hippolytus was buried with various companions, but their Passio lacks authority (H. Delehaye, Les origines du culte des martyrs, 2nd ed., Brussels 1933, pp. 305-306). The earliest documentation for Christianity in the diocese of A. is provided by a Christian sepulchral inscription of the year 357 containing the expression “cum sanctis sociatus” (CIL, X, 1191).
As regards the bishops, the earliest known so far is a Thimotheus of the end of the 5th century, present at the Roman Synod of the year 499 where he signed as Timotheus episcopus ecclesiae Abellinatis (Gesta Synodorum Romanorum, in MGH, Auctores Antiquissimi, XII, 399-455); of a bishop Sabinus there remains the sarcophagus where, between two candelabra, is inscribed a sepulchral epigraph in verse (CIL, X, 1194), of the same type as that on the sarcophagus of his deacon Romulus (CIL, X, 1195); both sarcophagi and inscriptions seem to belong to the 6th century, just like two other inscriptions relating to a priest Ioannis of the year 541 and to a reader who died in the year 558.
A kilometer from Prata are the remains of a series of small rock-hewn cemetery basilicas. Two columns delimit an elliptical space closed by walls up to half their height, from which spolia columns with rough capitals support arches on which is set a vault decorated (in the 15th century) with a representation of the Lord between two angels. In the center a small niche, below runs a bench. Beyond this space are found a round crypt with arcades and two terracotta sarcophagi and a cubicle with faded and undecipherable paintings.
In 969 the diocese became a suffragan of Benevento. In 1446 Paul III united to A., aequo principaliter, Frigento (which had united Acqua Putrida and Fclana); the bishop bore the two united titles until the concordat of 1818, in which Frigento was suppressed as an episcopal title and became a simple collegiate church. A. is the birthplace of the blessed Franciscan John of Armagnac, who died in 1313.
The cathedral was begun in 1132 by Bishop Robert. In the collegiate church of Atripalda is venerated a large group of tombs of martyrs, among whom are St. Sabinus, bishop, and St. Romulus. Abbeys and monasteries: St. Benedict (united in 1452 to the cathedral), St. Paul, St. John the Baptist.