MARIANA, ARCHDIOCESE OF
City and archdiocese in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Its suffragan sees are Porto Alegre, Campanha, Caratinga, Caruarú, Juiz de Fora, and Leopoldina. The archdiocese covers an area of 44,027 sq. km. and has a population of 900,000, of whom 897,500 are Catholic; it comprises 133 parishes, 161 diocesan priests, 89 regular clergy, 12 male and 12 female religious communities, and a major and minor seminary (1949). Its patroness is the Assumption, whose feast is celebrated on August 15.
### HISTORY
The city of Mariana, with a population of 40,000, retains a colonial appearance and customs. It was founded on July 16, 1696, under the name Ribeirão do Carmo, by the Paulista explorer («bandeirante») Salvador Fernandes Furtado de Mendonça, one of many who explored the region, which soon became populated by a heterogeneous multitude of adventurers and slaves drawn by the lure of gold.
Benedict XIV, by the motu proprio *Candor lucis aeternae* of December 6, 1746, erected a bishopric at Ribeirão do Carmo, which then assumed its present name of Mariana. The new see was carved out of the entire province of Minas Gerais, which at the time had a population of 300,000, taken from the diocese of Rio de Janeiro. Diocesan governance in the 18th century was particularly difficult due to the social corruption surrounding the mines, conflicts with civil authorities, and the fact that the cathedral chapter was divided into factions that fought one another or opposed the bishops’ initiatives. The first bishop was Manuel da Cruz, a Cistercian (1745–64), who worked with unparalleled zeal, organizing ecclesiastical administration and founding the seminary. The second, Joaquim Borges de Figueiredo (1771–72), and the third, Bartolomeu Nuñes dos Reis (1772–73), never visited the diocese, governing it through procurators. The fourth, Domingos da Incarnação Pontevel, a Dominican (1778–93), and the fifth, Cipriano de São José, a Franciscan (1797–1817), devoted much attention to clerical discipline.
From the period of Brazilian independence onward, the diocese was successively governed by José da Santíssima Trindade (1819–35), a Franciscan; Antônio Ferreira Viçoso, a Lazarist, venerated as a saint (1844–75); Antônio Augusto de Sousa e Benevides (1876–96); and Silverio Gomes Pimenta (1896–1922), a most noble figure in Brazilian episcopacy, both as a humanist and a pastor. Under his leadership, Mariana was elevated to an archdiocese by the consistorial decree *Sempiternum humani generis* of May 6, 1906. From the territory of the former diocese, which had been divided with the creation of the diocese of Diamantina in 1854, a further twelve dioceses and one *prelatura nullius* were later carved out, forming today two ecclesiastical provinces (Belo Horizonte and Diamantina), in addition to Mariana.
Famous in the history of Brazilian education is the Caraça College, founded within the diocese’s boundaries in 1772.
The archdiocese is perhaps the richest in Brazil in the field of religious art (v. Arte). The cities of Ouro Preto and Congonhas do Campo possess beautiful churches built during the gold-rush era, renowned for the sculptures of João Francisco Lisboa, known as O Aleijadinho.
Maurilio Cesar de Lima