CONCORDIA, DIOCESI di. — In the Veneto; its boundaries extend from the Tagliamento to the Livenza, and from the Adriatic to the mountains toward the Belluno area. Its origins go back to the end of the 4th century. The city of Julia Concordia Sagittaria was a Roman colony connected with the system of defense of Italy’s north-eastern frontier; it declined from the time of the barbarian invasions until it was reduced to the modest rural center it is today. The diocese, generously endowed by the Carolingian rulers, was feudally subjected by Ugo of Provence, king of Italy, to the patriarchate of Aquileia on 1 February 928; thus the bishop was the first of the patriarchate’s feudal vassals and, as such, from the 13th century onward took part in the Parliament of the Patria and of Friuli in the class of ecclesiastical prelates, even after the occupation of Friuli by Venice in the 15th century.
By the bull of Sixtus V of 29 March 1586, the episcopal see was transferred to the municipal castle of Portogruaro, where the bishop had already been residing, at least intermittently. In the ecclesiastical reorganization of the Venetian dioceses in 1818, C. became part of the ecclesiastical province of Venice, whereas previously it had belonged to that of Aquileia and subsequently to that of Udine.
Within the territory of the diocese stood the important abbey of S. Maria di Sesto in Sylvia, founded toward the end of the 8th century, which, however, soon passed under the spiritual and feudal dominion of the patriarch of Aquileia. The abbey of S. Maria di Summaga was founded during the 11th century with property belonging to the Concordia church; it too was suppressed at the end of the 18th century.
The population of the diocese reaches 316,850 inhabitants, of whom 316,820 are Catholics, grouped into 173 parishes and 13 rural vicariates, with 288 diocesan priests and 16 religious priests (1948).
There are more than forty inscriptions carved on the exterior, almost all in Latin, with very few in Greek. Many sarcophagi belonged to soldiers, three of whom came from Apamea.
Among the more notable inscriptions are the following: one in which it is said: ipsam arcam ecclesiae commendavi, whereas generally fines are imposed on violators of tombs, to be paid to the treasury and, on one occasion, to the municipality of C. (CIL, V, 8697). A second important inscription is that containing the following prayer of the two spouses deposited in the sarcophagus: Petimus omnem clerum et cunctam fraternitatem ut nullus de genere nostro vel aliquis in hac sepultura ponatur. Scriptum est: quod tibi fieri non vis alii ne feceris (CIL, V, 8738). In a third inscription the owners say: arcam commendamus sanctae ecclesiae civitatis Concordensium. Si quis aperire voluerit dabit fisco auri pondo duo sine mora (CIL, V, 8740).
Remains of tree trunks show that the cemetery was shaded. The entire area was covered with sand after having been devastated and the sarcophagi broken; the silting probably occurred at the end of the 6th century, when fuit diluvium aquarum in finibus Venetiarum quale post Noe tempore creditur non fuisse (Paolo Diacono, De rebus gestis Langobardorum, XVIII).
In 1902–1903, approximately 11 km. southwest of C., in the locality of Teson, at the site called «el baro de la Ciesuola» (the thicket of the little church), where, according to tradition, a church stood, the foundations of a large brick building (55.40 m. long) were discovered, together with other smaller attached structures and, toward the south, a water conduit. G. C. Bertolini considers it necessary to exclude the possibility that this was the church mentioned in the tradition, basing his view solely on the Roman Concordian type of the brick constructions.
It seems that C. was reinhabited in the 12th century, judging from the baptistery, which appears to date from that period; in it, a marble slab commemorates Regimpoto, bishop of C. in the 10th century.