CERVIA, Diocese of. — In Romagna, a suffragane of Ravenna, founded around the year 500. The first known bishop of Cervia is St. Gerontius, who subscribed to the acts of the synod celebrated in Rome by Pope Symmachus (501). However, the legend of St. Gerontius is not to be trusted regarding what it narrates about him. Another bishop of Cervia of whom we have record is Severus, who in 591 appears as visitor of Rimini and in 592 of Ravenna. Also known is Bishop John, whom Pope Nicholas I sent to France in 862 with Radoald to examine the matrimonial cause of Emperor Lothair with Teutberga. Although in the spurious privilege of Gregory the Great (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 1883) Cervia is listed among the suffragane dioceses of Ravenna, it seems that from the earliest times it was immediately subject to the Holy See. In 948 Pope Agapetus II permitted it to be severed from the Roman patriarchate and subjected to Ravenna.
In the struggles between the Church and the empire, Cervia followed the empire; then, allied or in conflict with Ravenna, it took part throughout the 13th century in the struggles of the Romagnol communes and was subject to the Ravennates. Giovanni Ursarola, who governed the diocese from 1232, sought to shake off their tyranny and the yoke of the archbishop of Ravenna, appealing to Gregory IX, who took his side. For a decade under Venetian rule (1243–53), then under that of the Forlivesi (1270–90) and the Polentani, it finally passed to the Malatesta of Rimini (1348), who ceded it to Venice in 1463. In the 15th century its history merged with that of the Papal States. Gregory XV, elevating Bologna to an archiepiscopal see, attached Cervia to it as a suffragane; but under Paul V it returned to the jurisdiction of Ravenna.
Its territory, though small, comprises, besides Cervia, Massa Fiscaglia, Fiscaglia, Migliara, Migliarino, Santa Margherita, Alberlungo, Madelana and Rovereto. Since 1907 its title has been united with that of the archbishop of Ravenna, who is also bishop of Cervia.