Concordia, Diocese of

CONCORDIA, Diocese of. - In Venetia; its boundaries run from the Tagliamento to the Livenza, 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 tied to the system of defense of the northeastern border of Italy, which declined from the time of the barbarian invasions until it was reduced today to a modest rural center. The diocese, generously endowed by the Carolingian sovereigns, was subjected feudally by Hugh of Provence, king of Italy, to the patriarchate of Aquileia on 1 February 928; so that the bishop was the first of the feudal vassals of the patriarchate 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.

With the bull of Sixtus V of 29 March 1586 the episcopal see was transferred to the civic castle of Portogruaro, where the bishop had already previously resided, 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 belonged to that of Aquileia and then 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, but it had very soon passed under the spiritual and feudal dominion of the patriarch of Aquileia. With the patrimony of the church of Concordia the abbey of S. Maria di Summaga had been founded during the 11th century, also suppressed at the end of the 18th century.

The population of the diocese reaches 316,850 inhabitants, of whom 316,820 are Catholics, grouped in 173 parishes and 13 rural deaneries with 288 diocesan priests and 16 regulars (1948).

Pio Paschini.

ARCHAEOLOGY

In 1873, about 500 m from the circuit of the old C., on the left bank of the Lemene, an open-air Christian cemetery was discovered, consisting of a series of more than 140 tombs in limestone, with Constantinian monograms ♏ on the pediments of the tombs, or with monogrammatic crosses ♑ or equilateral crosses ♒. The tombs were arranged in groups of 10 or 12 and oriented toward the east.

The inscriptions carved on the outside number more than forty, almost all in Latin, very few in Greek. Many tombs belong to soldiers; three of these are natives of Apamea.

Among the most notable inscriptions are remembered: one in which it is said: ipsam arcam ecclesiae commendavi, while generally fines are imposed against violators of tombs, to be paid to the treasury and once to the municipality of C. (CIL, V, 8697). A second important inscription is the one in which the following prayer of the two spouses buried in the sarcophagus is read: 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 epitaph 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 whole area was covered with sand, after it had been devastated and the tombs broken; the covering with sand probably occurred at the end of the 6th century, when fuit diluvium aquarum in finibus Venetiarum quale post Noe tempore creditur non fuisse (Paul the Deacon, De rebus gestis Langobardorum, XVIII).

In 1902-1903, about 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) and where, according to tradition, a church stood, the foundations were discovered of a large brick building (55.40 m long) with other smaller annexed structures and, toward the south, a water conduit. G. C. Bertolini holds that it must be excluded that this is the church intended by tradition, basing himself solely on the Roman Concordian type of the brick constructions.

It seems that C. was re-inhabited in the 12th century, on account of the baptistery, which appears to be of that period; in it a marble slab commemorates Regimpoto, bishop of C. in the 10th century.

Enrico Josi