Coria, Diocese of

CORIA, Diocese of. - City in Spain, suffragan of Toledo, situated on the eastern borders of Portugal. There is no information about the religious life of the diocese and its bishops until 589, that is, until the Third Council of Toledo, where the conversion of the Visigoths and of the entire Spanish people to the Catholic faith was proclaimed.

Among the 62 bishops attending that assembly, the bishop Hyacinth of C. signs last, which suggests he had been recently consecrated. He was succeeded by Elias, who subscribed at Toledo in 610 a decree of King Gundemar concerning the Carthaginian Metropolitan; after him, Boniface I, John, Atula and Boniface II governed the diocese, and they attended the various Councils of Toledo. During the time of Peter (713) C. was occupied by the Saracens, and thus there resulted a vacancy of the see for a period of nearly a century and a half; indeed one may say for more than four centuries, since the bishops Babila and James (860-915) resided elsewhere. With the reconquest of the city in the 13th century and with the bishop Iñigo Navarron, the continuous series of the prelates of Coria reopens. The diocese has an area of 9,742 sq km, with 131 parishes, 176 diocesan priests and 17 regular clergy serving the 249,518 inhabitants, all Catholic (1949). The patron is St. Peter of Alcantara.