OVIEDO, Diocese of. - Capital city of the province of Asturias and seat of the diocese of the same name in Spain, which also embraces a large part of the provinces of Lugo, León, Zamora and Santander.
It has an area of 13,560 sq. km. with a population of 1,300,000 inhabitants, of whom 1,200,040 are Catholics distributed in 1,150 parishes, served by 737 diocesan priests and 180 regulars; it has a major and a minor seminary, 20 male religious communities and 95 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 306).
The diocese was founded in 805 under Alfonso II. Around the 10th century it was elevated to a metropolis; later it lost that dignity and became a suffragan of Santiago de Compostela, as it still is. In 1105 Pope Paschal II exempted it, and so it remained until the Concordat of 1851. The Cathedral is Gothic with a transept and choir; three portals in the main façade, erected in 1388-1498 to replace the earlier one built in 802.
Its tower is the finest in Spanish Gothic, severely damaged in the Spanish Civil War but rebuilt. Also noteworthy is the "Cámara santa" with historical and artistic treasures of the Middle Ages, among them the famous Cross of the Angels, a gift of Alfonso II the Chaste. Highly remarkable is the wooden retable behind the high altar in the flamboyant Gothic style. Attached to the Cathedral is the cloister, completed at the end of the 15th century. In the territory of the diocese, in a rocky and picturesque spot, stands the collegiate abbey of Covadonga, famous because, according to tradition, from here Pelagius began the reconquest of Spain. There is the celebrated image of the Madonna known popularly as the Santina. Of notable interest in the surroundings of O. are the churches of St. Mary of Naranco and St. Michael of Lillo in pure Romanesque style, erected in the middle of the 9th century.
Bibliography2 works
Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina