DIAMANTINA, Archdiocese of
In Brazil, it is the metropolitan see of the eponymous ecclesiastical province that occupies the entire northern part of the State of Minas Gerais, with the dioceses of Montes Claros, Araçuaí, and the prelature nullius of Paracatu.
Its area is 62,094 sq. km., with a population of 631,000, of whom 630,500 are Catholics. It comprises 66 parishes, served by 55 diocesan priests and 35 religious (Franciscans, Capuchins, Lazarists, and Redemptorists). There are also 2 female religious congregations (1948). It has its own major and minor seminaries and its patron is St. Anthony of Padua.
The see arose through the efforts of the bandeirantes in search of gold and diamonds, of which the region is rich, under the original name of Tijuco, in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its present name dates from 1838, when it was raised to the status of a city. During the colonial and imperial periods, its history is that of the State of Minas Gerais and of the Diocese of Mariana, from which it was detached on 6 June 1854 by the bull of Pius IX (Graziosi, Mussolini, 1854). Ten years later, its first bishop, Giannantonio dos Santos (1864–1905), took charge, and 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 Silveiro dos Santos (1905–33). On 28 June 1917, Benedict XV, with the constitution *Quandocumque se praebuit*, raised Diamantina to the status of an archdiocese; through the convocation of 3 diocesan synods, it experienced a great religious growth.
Apart from its first two bishops, among the Catholics of the archdiocese the figure of Gioacchino Felicio dos Santos, physician and journalist (d. 1931), is worthy of note.
The greatest center of religious culture is the seminary. For the laity, as in other large cities of Brazil, there exists the “Centro D. Vital.” The official organ of the diocesan press is the weekly *Estrela Polar*.
Notable religious monuments may be considered all the churches of the metropolis, since all were built during the apogee of colonial art.
Maurilio Cesar de Lima