LARINO, DIOCESE of. - City and diocese in the province of Campobasso. It has 72,000 inhabitants, of whom 71,800 are Catholics. It has 22 parishes served by 51 diocesan priests, one seminary, and 11 communities of women religious (1949). The diocese is suffragan to Benevento.
The present L. arose in the Middle Ages after the destruction of ancient Larinum, formerly the capital of the Frentani and later a Roman municipium; the ruins of its amphitheatre and walls remain. The Cathedral, dedicated to the Assumption, in Apulian Gothic style, dates from 1319. The patron is St. Pardo (26 May). Larinum was an episcopal see from the 5th century onward; there is record of an Iustus, bishop in 493, and of an Ioannes in 555. Giovanni XIII, at the Synod of 969, made it suffragan to Benevento. The Cathedral was raised to the rank of minor basilica by apostolic letter of Pio XI of 13 July 1928 (AAS, 21 [1929], pp. 147-48). - See pl. LVI.