IBIZA, Diocese of. - I. is one of the islands of the Balearic group. The diocese of Ebusus is made up of the islands of I. (Eivissa or Ervissa in Catalan) and Formentera and of some adjacent islets. As a whole it has an area of 600 sq km with a population of 45,000 inhabitants, all Catholic.
The diocese comprises 23 parishes (with five archpresbyterates) whose service is carried out by 53 diocesan priests and 2 regulars, a conciliar seminary and a preparatory school attached to the seminary, one male religious community and 11 female ones (1949).
The islands of I. and Formentera were called "Pityusae" by the Greeks, because of the luxuriant vegetation of pines that still adorns them. The Romans called I. Ebusus. The name of Formentera derives from the Latin Frumentaria.
Victor of Vita mentions, among the bishops whom the Vandal Huneric had gathered at Carthage to attract them to Arianism, Elio of Majorca, Macarius of Minorca and Opilio of I., who valiantly proclaimed their attachment to their faith. In 535, after Belisarius' expedition against the Vandals of Africa and the Balearics, I. became part of Byzantine Spain. From then on it became a refuge for the monks of the monastery situated near Cape Martin.
To the last years of the Visigothic kingdom belongs a gold ring, found a few years ago near the city among sepulchral remains, with a Cross bearing the following inscription: In D(omi)no Benedicto tecum, Vifrede, vita. In 1235 I. and Formentera were conquered by Guillermo de Montgrí, and then passed to the diocese of Tarragona, until their erection into an episcopate by Pius VI with the bull Ineffabilis Dei benignitas of 30 April 1782. The first bishop of the new diocese was Fr. Manuel Abad y Lasierra.
By the Concordat of 1851 the Cathedral was reduced to a collegiate church and aggregated to the bishopric of Majorca. In 1927, the bishopric was restored with the character of an apostolic administration. In 1950 I. was erected as a diocese.
Natives of I. were Jaime Cardona y Tur (d. 1923), bishop of Sion and patriarch of the Indies; Juan Torres y Ribas (d. 1939), bishop of Minorca, and Fr. Fulgencio Torres y Mayans (d. 1914), bishop-abbot of New Nursia, founder of the mission of Drydale-River (Australia).
The archives of the Cathedral and of the bishopric are rich in parchments and historical documents.
MONASTERIES AND CONVENTS
The first monastery was that of St. Mary de Formentera of the Hermits of St. Augustine. It survived only until the end of the 13th century or the beginning of the 14th, when the island was abandoned because of Moorish raids. Toward the end of the 15th century or the beginning of the 14th, the Franciscans settled in the church of Our Lady of Jesus, to whom the islanders had been devoted since ancient times.
In 1580 the Dominicans were added to the Franciscans, and they founded in the city the convent of St. Vincent Ferrer and St. James. There they remained until 1836. In 1599 the monastery of St. Christopher of the Augustinian nuns was founded. In 1653 the Jesuits, expelled in 1767 by King Charles III, settled at I.
MONUMENTS
The most notable monument is the Cathedral (the ancient parish of St. Mary) with its old tower. The Cathedral, built shortly after the Christian conquest of 1235, is ogival, but was partly disfigured by the Baroque reconstruction of the 18th century. Its titular is Our Lady of the Snows, patroness of the diocese. Preserved there, among other things, is a precious Gothic monstrance with rich enamels, from the beginning of the 15th century. Adjacent is the building of the Archaeological Museum with Punic and Roman collections, with a fine ogival hall of the 13th-14th century, the ancient chapel of the Savior, of the Confraternity of the People of the Sea.
Next in importance is the church of St. Dominic (the ancient Dominican convent of St. Vincent and St. James), a work of the Renaissance (1592) due to two Genoese masters. In the parish of Our Lady of Jesus there is a painting of the Madonna titular of the Church, by the Valencian painter Rodrigo de Osona (the younger) from the early 16th century.