Lamego, Diocese of

LAMEGO, Diocese of. - City and diocese in the northern part of Portugal.

It has an area of 2,751 sq. km., with a population of 224,969 inhabitants, of whom 224,398 are Catholics, distributed among 217 parishes, with 215 diocesan priests and 9 regulars, a seminary, 2 male religious communities and 7 female ones (1949).

The oldest notice concerning this diocese is found in the Council of Lugo (569). Three years later, the bishop of L., Sardinarius, took part in the Second Council of Braga, perhaps as the first bishop of the diocese. Philip, who took part in the Third Council of Toledo (589), was probably his successor. The diocese of L., which was a suffragan of Braga, passed to the jurisdiction of Merida around 653. Fioncio, present at the Fifteenth Council of Toledo (688) and also at the Seventeenth (695), seems to have been the last prelate of Lamego before the invasion of the Arabs. From this time there are names of various bishops who seem to have been mere titulars, because residence there was not possible. After the reconquest of the city by Ferdinand the Great, between 1057 and 1064, an attempt was also made to renew the Christian faith. Sancho of Castile, son of Ferdinand, restored the bishopric and placed Bishop Peter at its head. However, given the precarious economic situation of the region, the pontiff Paschal II, with the bull Apostolicae Sedis of 23 March 1102, entrusted its care to the bishop of Coimbra, which gave rise to no small disputes. Hugh, bishop of Oporto, went to Rome and obtained for himself the administration of the bishopric of L. The bishop of Coimbra protested against this decision. Then Pope Paschal II, having heard the opinion of the bishops of Toledo, Braga, Tui and Salamanca, again entrusted the care of the diocese to the bishop of Coimbra, a provision confirmed by the pontiff Honorius II (11 Feb. 1126). At this time the diocese of L. was a suffragan of Compostela, to which Callixtus II had transmitted the metropolitan rights of Merida. This fact was a cause of conflicts between the archbishop of Compostela and that of Braga. Innocent III put an end to the conflicts between the two archbishops in their presence, placing the dioceses of L. and of Guarda under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Compostela. Pope Pius XI, with the apostolic constitution Praedecessorum nostrorum (AAS, 14 [1922], pp. 369-72), assigned L. to the ecclesiastical province of Braga.

Among its bishops is counted Tomás de Almeida, who was bishop of Oporto and then the first patriarch of Lisbon.

Carmo da Silva