ORIA, DIOCESE OF. – A city and diocese in the province of Brindisi, comprising 7 communes in that province and 4 in that of Taranto.
It has an area of 92,620 sq. km, with a population of 750,000, of whom 148,600 are Catholics, distributed among 23 parishes, served by 84 diocesan priests and 94 regular clergy; it has a seminary, 15 male religious communities and 28 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 302).
The diocese was founded on 8 May 1591 by Pope Gregory XIV with the bull Regimini Universae, as a suffragan of Taranto; its first bishop was Msgr. V. TURIO. The present cathedral is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Assumed into Heaven. The patron saint of the diocese is St. Bassanofio the Abbot. Dominating the Tavoliere delle Puglie stands the castle attributed to Frederick II (1227–33). It was built on the site of an ancient 9th-century church dedicated to Sts. Cristiano and Daria, of which only the crypt remains, with fragments of frescoes.