GUADIX, Diocese of. - 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 has 74 parishes served by 68 diocesan priests and 4 regulars, 1 seminary, 1 male religious community and 13 female ones (1949). G. is the ancient Acci in Andalusia, today entirely included in the civil province of Granada, except for 6 parishes that belong to Almeria.
Its foundation by St. Torquatus, one of the so-called "apostolic bishops" disciples of St. James, having been dismissed as legendary, and the existence of his disciple St. Athanasius not being proven, the first historical notice is the presence of Bishop St. Felix at the famous Council of Elvira (ca. 300); it is likewise established that Bishop St. Liliolus attended the Third Council of Toledo in 589, where the solemn reconciliation of the Visigothic nation with the Catholic Church took place. Despite the Arab invasion of the 8th century, this diocese remained until the conquest of the Almohads, so that in the Synod of Cordoba of 839 the bishop Quirinus is named. In the 15th century certain titular prelates appear, but once the Moors of Granada were defeated in 1492, the sovereigns called "Catholic" re-established this see with pontifical approval, appointing as its first bishop the Franciscan Garcia de Quijada, who united with G. the ancient Basti (Baza), founded in the 4th century. The Cathedral, first erected in a mosque taken from the Mohammedans, received from 1597 a building of Christian architecture, completely finished in 1799. Beautiful dome; the facade is a most perfect example of the renewal style of the period; likewise the artistic choir is perhaps the finest Baroque in that region. Distinguished relics are preserved there; 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 the Italian Renaissance. The patron of the diocese is St. Torquatus. The Cathedral is dedicated to the Most Holy Annunciation.