LOJA, Diocese of. - Diocese and capital of the province of the same name, a city in Ecuador.

It has an area of 20,000 sq km with a population of 180,000 inhabitants, of whom 176,400 are Catholics; it has 46 parishes served by 56 diocesan priests and 14 regulars, a seminary, 4 male religious communities and 14 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 252).

The city, situated in the Val de Canbamba, was founded in 1546, and in 1580 the first provincial Council was held there, since there was already at that time a parish church and a community of Franciscans and Dominicans. In 1861 L. had a college run by the Jesuits, and in 1865 the pope

Pius IX created the diocese of L.; the first bishop was Msgr. Checa, his successor was Msgr. Riofrio, later archbishop of Quito; the third, Msgr. J. Masia, was exiled and died in Peru in 1902. He was followed in 1907 by Msgr. J. J. A. Eguiguren, who founded the preparatory school of the seminary, entrusting it to the Brothers of the Christian Schools. Among the churches, besides the cathedral, those of the Carmine, of St. Joseph, of St. Francis, of St. Dominic, and of St. Sebastian are remembered. The diocese is a suffragan of Quito.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: A. A. Mac Erlean, s. v. in Cath. Enc., IX, pp. 322-23; anon., s. v. in Enc. Eur. Am., XXX, pp. 1466-71.

Enrico Jori

@incollection{ec7_loja_diocesi_di, author = {Josi, Enrico}, title = {Loja, diocesi di}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {1487--1488}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/loja-diocesi-di} }

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Loja, Diocese of

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