DIAMANTINA, ARCHDIOCESE of. — In Brazil, it is the metropolitan see of the ecclesiastical province of the same name, which occupies the entire northern part of the State of Minas Geraes, with the dioceses of Montes Claros and Arassuai and the nullus prelature of Paracatù.
Its area is 62,094 sq. km., with 631,000 inhabitants, of whom 630,500 are Catholics. It comprises 66 parishes, with 55 diocesan priests and 35 religious (Franciscans, Capuchins, Lazarists, and Redemptorists). There are also 2 women’s religious congregations (1948). It has its own major and minor seminaries, and its patron is s. Antonio di Padova.
D. arose through the work of the bandeirantes in search of gold and diamonds, with which the region is rich, under the primitive name of Tijuco, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Its present name dates from 1858, when it was raised to the status of a city. During the colonial and imperial periods, its history was that of the State of Minas Geraes and of the diocese of Mariana, from which it was detached on 6 June 1854 by the bull of Pius IX Gravissimum sollicitudinis. Ten years later, its first bishop, Giannantonio dos Santos (1864–1905), assumed its governance; in the difficult circumstances of the time, he succeeded in founding the seminary (1867), entrusting it to the Lazarists. He was succeeded by his coadjutor Gioacchino Silverio dos Santos (1905–33). On 28 June 1917, Benedict XV, by the constitution Quandocumque se presènis, elevated D. to an archdiocese; thanks to the convocation of 3 diocesan synods, it experienced a great religious development.
Besides its first 2 bishops, among the Catholics of the archdiocese the figure of Gioacchino Felicio dos Santos, physician and journalist (d. 1931), deserves mention.
The greatest centre of religious culture is the seminary. For the laity, as in other large cities of Brazil, there is the «Centro D. Vital». The official organ of the diocesan press is the weekly Estrela Polar.
All the churches of the metropolitan see may be regarded as notable religious monuments, since they were all built during the apogee of colonial art.
Maurilio Cesar de Lima