COIRA, diocese of. - A city in Switzerland (Lat. Curia Rhaetorum, Romansh Cuara, Fr. Coire, Ger. Chur), capital of the Canton of the Grisons. Of ancient origin, it was an important road junction even in Roman times. Seat of a very ancient bishopric, whose first bishop, according to legend, was St LUCIUS (1st century AD). In 450, the bishop of C. took part in the Council of Milan. From the 5th century, several bishops of the Victorid family
Coira - Romanesque portal of the Cathedral, built between 1178 and 1282.
also held temporal authority over the country; the last of them, Tello, died in 773, leaving his possessions by testament to the Abbey of Disentis. Charlemagne, however, in 805 wished to separate temporal from spiritual power. In 843, the diocese of C. was detached from the archbishopric of Milan and attached to that of Mainz, on which it remained dependent until 1804.
Following the donations of the Ottonians, the bishop became lord of much of the country, and from 1170 to 1805 was also a prince of the Empire. The temporal rights of the bishop were suppressed by the Ilanz Articles of 1524–1526, at which time the Reformation was introduced into the country, but the bishop continued to exercise the right of coinage until 1767, and only in 1798 did all his temporal power cease entirely. Today the jurisdiction of the diocese extends over the Catholics of the Cantons of the Grisons, Uri, Unterwalden (both Upper and Lower), Schwyz, Glarus, Zurich, and the Principality of Liechtenstein. The territory of the diocese, which covers 12,455 sq. km., comprises, out of a total population of 899,460, 327,345 faithful, divided into 257 parishes, served by 563 diocesan priests and 475 religious (1948).
Among its monuments may be mentioned the Cathedral, built in the years 1179–1282, on the site of an ancient church of the 14th century; in it is preserved the tomb of Bishop Ortlieb de Brandis (15th century), and a magnificent high altar in carved wood, the work of Jacob Russ of Ravensburg (1491).
Noteworthy also is the church of St Martin, with remains of the original building of the 9th century, rebuilt in Gothic style in 1491, now used for Protestant worship. Among the abbeys existing in the diocese, besides those of Einsiedeln (q.v.) and Engelberg (q.v.), may be mentioned the Premonstratensian abbey of St Lucius (1040), suppressed in 1806, and the Benedictine abbey of Disentis, founded by Sigibert in 614, originally dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and SS. Martin and Peter, later to SS. Placidus and Sigibert, erected as a Swiss congregation in 1617.