OLINDA AND RECIFE, ARCHDIOCESE OF
In the State of Pernambuco (Brazil). It is the metropolitan see of the ecclesiastical province whose boundaries coincide with those of the said State and which includes the suffragan dioceses of Pesqueira, Garanhuns, Nazaréth, and Petrolina. The archdiocese covers approximately 14,539 sq. km. and has a population of 990,000, of whom 973,842 are Catholics. It comprises 47 parishes served by 74 diocesan priests and 142 religious, two seminaries (in Olinda), 4 male and 27 female religious communities (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 296).
Olinda is the site of the ancient cathedral; the archbishop and his curia, however, reside in Recife.
The first explorers of the Brazilian coast did not linger in Pernambuco. In 1534, Duarte Coelho, who received the region as a hereditary fief, laid the foundations of the future city of Olinda, which soon flourished thanks to the skill of its proprietor and the fertility of the land, becoming within a few years the leading colony in sugar exports—a product that remains the State’s principal commodity. Such prosperity could not fail to attract the cupidity of adventurers, particularly the Dutch, who attacked the Brazilian coast near Pernambuco in 1630, forcing the Luso-Brazilians to retreat; these, however, recovered and inflicted a defeat on the Dutch at Guararapes (1649), finally compelling them to capitulate under the Treaty of 1661.
The ancient *prelatura nullius* of Olinda, established before 1612 and later annexed to the bishopric of Bahia, was erected as a suffragan diocese of Salvador by the bull *Ad sacram beati Petri* of 16 November 1676. More recently, noteworthy events include the Third National Eucharistic Congress (1939) and the Catholic intellectual movement.
From the territory of the former diocese were detached Fortaleza (1854), João Pessoa (or Paraíba, 1892), and Maceió (1900), which now belong to separate ecclesiastical provinces, as well as the current suffragan dioceses mentioned above, to which Caruaru may be added. By decree of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation, Olinda became a metropolitan see in 1910, adopting its present name through the apostolic letter *Cum urbs Recife* of 26 July 1918.
Among the bishops of Olinda and Recife are remembered Manuel Alvares da Costa (1706–15); José da Cunha de Azeredo Coutinho (1795–1802); Vital Gonçalves de Oliveira (1871–78); and Archbishop Sebastião Leme da Silveira Cintra (1916–21).
In the city of Recife and its environs, there are numerous monuments of colonial art (v. ARTE): such as the Seminary of Olinda, the churches of São Pedro dos Clérigos, Nossa Senhora do Carmo, and the Third Order, etc. Also of interest are the remains of the old fortresses from the Dutch wars.