GUADIX, DIOCESE OF. - A city and diocese in Spain, in the province of Granada, of which it is a suffragan. It has an area of 4,735 sq. km., with 180,000 inhabitants, all Catholic; it comprises 74 parishes served by 68 diocesan priests and 4 regulars, 1 seminary, 1 male religious community, and 13 female (1949). G. is the ancient Acci in Andalusia, now entirely within the civil province of Granada, except for 6 parishes belonging to Almería.
The legend of its foundation by St. Torquatus, one of the so-called “apostolic bishops,” disciples of St. James, is dismissed as unhistorical, and the existence of his alleged disciple St. Athanasius is likewise unproven. The first historical notice is the presence of Bishop St. Felix at the famous Council of Elvira (c. 300); it is also certain that Bishop St. Lilius attended the Third Council of Toledo in 589, where the solemn reconciliation of the Visigothic nation with the Catholic Church took place. Despite the Moorish invasion of the 8th century, the diocese remained intact until the conquest by the Almohads, so that in the *Sindolo of Córdoba* of 839 the bishop Quirinus is mentioned.
In the 15th century some titular prelates appear, but after the fall of Granada in 1492, the “Catholic Monarchs” reestablished the see with papal approval, appointing as its first bishop the Franciscan García de Quijada, who reunited with Guadix the ancient Basti (Baza), founded in the 4th century. The cathedral, first set up in a mosque taken from the Muslims, received from 1597 a Christian building of architecture, completed in 1799. It has a fine dome; the façade is a perfect example of the style of renewal of the period; likewise the artistic choir is perhaps the finest Baroque in that region. It preserves notable relics; paintings by Rosales, sculptures by Ruiz del Peral and Alcudia, and some vestments from the time of Isabella the Catholic in the purest style of Italian Renaissance. The patron saint of the diocese is St. Torquatus. The cathedral is dedicated to the Most Holy Annunciation.