MONDOÑEDO, DIOCESE OF. – A Spanish city and diocese in the extreme west of the Cantabrian coast, in the civil provinces of Lugo and A Coruña. It covers 4,369 sq km and has 321,400 inhabitants, of whom 320,750 are Catholic. It comprises 401 parishes served by 345 diocesan priests and 42 religious, as well as one seminary. Religious communities: 7 male and 28 female.
Its origins date back to the 6th century, according to some writers, who supposed it to have been governed for a long time by the abbots of Dumio, among whom the first, St Martin, and the sixth, St Fructuosus, are especially remembered; these men also served the diocese of Braga. More reliable information is available from the 9th century onward; the see was moved several times and even changed its name, the last occasion being in 1114, when it was transferred to Vallibria, later called M., by virtue of a decree of the Council of Palencia confirmed by Pope Paschal II. However, the prelates Rabinato, at the end of the 12th century, and Pelagius II, his successor, resided in Ribadeo.
Among the most illustrious bishops, besides the patron saint of the diocese, St Rosendo, founder of the monastery of Celanova, and Gonzalo, surnamed the Saint in the 10th century, are Nuño Alonso in the 11th, Martin, builder and endower of the present cathedral in the 13th, Enriquez de Castro, to whom is owed the ancient cloister of the same church in the 15th, Cardinal Pacheco, the famous Franciscan writer Antonio de Guevara and the Franciscan Antonio de Luján in the 16th, the Trinitarian Diego de Cabrera, intrepid defender of the diocese against the Protestant English, and Torres Grijalba in the 17th; Muñoz Salcedo, who among other works built the cathedral towers, and Sarmiento de Sotomayor, to whom are due the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Remedies and the city hospital; Riomol Quiroga, restorer of the episcopal palace, and Losada, who erected the present seminary, enlarged in the 19th century by Bishop Cos y Macho.
The present cathedral, dedicated to the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was built in the 13th century with the aid of King Alfonso IX; it exhibits a transitional style from Romanesque to Gothic, though the reliefs of the façade and towers show rather the Baroque mastery of the 17th century.