JURIA. - A "prelatura nullius" in the State of Amazonas in Brazil.
It has an area of 20,000 sq. km. with 78,000 inhabitants, of whom 75,000 are Catholics; it comprises 6 parishes with 11 secular priests, 6 male religious communities and 1 female (Annuario Pontificio, 1951, p. 629).
The prelature was created by Pope Pius XI with the apostolic constitution Munus regendi universam of 22 May 1931, by separating it from the diocese of Amazonas, elevating to the dignity of a prelature the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary Assumed in the city of Cruzeiro do Sul, the residential seat of the prelature itself, which is suffragan to Belem de Pará.
BIBL.: AAS, 24 (1932), pp. 219-21. Enrico Josi