SARAGOZZA (ZARAGOZA), ARCHDIOCESE OF - Madonna del Pilar, alabaster statue. Sanctuary of the Pilar – Saragozza.
2. Among the other women of this name in the Old Testament, mention must be made of S., daughter of Raguel and wife of young Tobias (Tob. 6-11). At first tormented by the evil spirit Asmodeus (v.), who had killed her first seven husbands (ibid. 3, 8), she was later freed through the intervention of the angel Raphael (v.), who arranged her marriage to Tobias, her kinsman, when he went to Ecbatana in Media (Vulg. Rages, today Hamadan in Iran) to collect an old debt. The liturgy has adopted, in the Mass for the married, the beautiful formula of good wishes and blessing pronounced by Raguel at the marriage of his daughter S. to Tobias: “May the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob be with you, and may he join you and fulfill his blessing in you” (Tob. 7, 15). The wedding festivities celebrated at Ecbatana were then repeated at Nineveh in the house of Tobias’s parents (ibid. 11, 15 ff.). The two spouses spent their last years at Ecbatana in Raguel’s house (ibid. 14, 21 ff.).
SARAGOZZA (ZARAGOZA), ARCHDIOCESE OF. City and metropolitan archdiocese of Aragon (Spain), situated in the civil province of the same name and largely in that of Teruel. It has one parish in Navarre, while the parish of St. Engratia, in the city itself, belongs to the diocese of Huesca. The city of Saragozza was described by Isidore of Seville as “the most delightful city of all the cities of Spain for its pleasantness and charm.”
The area of the archdiocese is 20,409 sq. km., with a population of 570,000, all Catholic, distributed among 371 parishes, served by 474 diocesan priests and 257 regular clergy. It has three seminaries: the Royal of St. Charles Borromeo, founded in 1588 and entrusted to the Jesuits, who remained there until their expulsion under Charles III; the Pontifical of St. Valero, founded in 1788; and the minor seminary of Belchite. There are also 22 male religious communities and 105 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 369).
The city on the right bank of the Ebro was inhabited by the Cantabri and was called Salduba or Salhuvia; destroyed in 45 BC, it was rebuilt by the Romans, who named it “Colonia Caesar Augusta.” It was invaded in 409 by the Vandals; in 452 by the Suebi; around 466 by the Visigoths; around 714 by the Arabs, who called it Saragustah, whence the modern name. The Arabs made it the capital of one of the states that arose after the destruction of the caliphate of Córdoba. Contested by the kings of Aragon and those of Castile, it was conquered by Alfonso I of Aragon, called “the Battler,” on 19 December 1118; it then flourished to become the center of Aragonese political life, a primacy it lost with the formation of the Kingdom of Spain; it rebelled in vain at the end of the 16th century; Philip II stripped it of much of its 15th-century administrative constitutions that had served as a model for other cities of the Kingdom of Aragon; it recovered under the favor of Charles of Austria but was exhausted by Philip V. In the war against Napoleon, nearly half its citizens fell during two months of heroic siege that earned the city the title of “siempre heróica” [always heroic].
Christianity in Saragozza is attested from the mid-3rd century; St. Cyprian in 254 calls its bishop Felix “a cultivator and defender of the faith and truth” (PL 3, 1066 A; ed. G. Bayard, II, Paris 1925, ep. 67, 6, p. 231). At the beginning of the 4th century, the bishop of Saragozza is listed among the signatories of the Council of Elvira.
Among the bishops of Saragozza before the Arab invasion, mention is made of Maximus (c. 592-619), who attended the Synods of Barcelona and Egara; he was succeeded by St. Braulio (v.), who attended the 4th, 5th, and 6th Councils of Toledo; then Samuel Tahon (v.), who attended the Synods of Toledo in the years 653, 655, and 656 and is the author of the *Libri Sententiarum* (PL 80, 727-990; Z. Garcia Villada, *Historia eclesiástica de España*, II, II, Madrid 1933, p. 90 ff.). During the Arab invasion, the known bishops are Senior (c. 850), Elna, who took refuge in 800 in Oviedo, and Paterno, who was sent to Cluny and later introduced its reform to the abbey of St. John of the Peña and to St. Salvador de Leyre. After the reconquest, the first bishop was Pedro de Librana, confirmed by Callistus II. Among his successors is Bernard (1138-52), who established canons in the two cathedrals of St. Saviour and Our Lady of the Pilar. At the urging of King James II of Aragon, Pope John XXII on 18 June 1318 elevated the diocese of Saragozza to a metropolitan see, assigning it the suffragan sees of Calahorra, Tarazona, Pamplona, Huesca, and Segorbe. Further modifications were made by the Concordat of 1851; today its suffragans are: Albarracín, Barbastro, Huesca, Jaca, Pamplona, Tarazona, Teruel, Tudela. The first archbishop of Saragozza was P. Lopez de Luna; his successors were from the House of Aragon for about a century, namely John (1458), Alonso (1478-1520), John II (1520-30), and Ferdinand (1539-75), formerly abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Veruela (Cottineau, II, cols. 3349-50). Archbishop Garcia Fernández de Heredia was assassinated in 1411 by Antonio de Luna.
Among the archbishops raised to the purple are Giulio Campullas (1347-51), Manuel García Gil (1858-1881), who was one of the theologians at the Vatican Council, Fr. de Paula Benavides y Navarrete (1881-94), and Cardinal J. Soldevila y Romero, assassinated in 1923 (AAS, 15 [1923], p. 605).
Synods and Martyrs. – In 380, with the participation of 10 Spanish bishops and 2 from Gaul, the first synod against Priscillianism was held; the second was held on 1 November 592 by Bishop Magnus; the third in 691 under Bishop Valdaredo; a fourth by Archbishop Andrea Santos (1578-85) for the application of the canons of the Council of Trent. To the clergy Vincent (v.), martyred in 304 at Sagunto, as attested by Prudentius, who dedicated to him the 4th poem of his *Peristephanon*. The same poet lists the names of 18 martyrs of Saragozza, namely Optatus, Lupercus, Successus, Martial, Urban, Julius, Quintilian, Publius, Fronto, Felix, Caecilian, Evodius, Primitivus, Apodemus, four named Saturninus, and three confessors: Engratia, Caius, and Cremesius (ibid., vv. 145-64). The four named Saturninus are replaced by Eugenius of Toledo with Cassian, Januarius, Matutinus, and Faustus (Carmen de Basilica sanctorum XVIII martyrum, IX, 15-20, in MGH, Auctores antiquiss., XIV, p. 240), names that recur in the Mozarabic Sacramentary (M. Ferotin, *Le liber mozarabicus Sacramentorum et les manuscrits mozarabiques*, Paris 1912, p. 276). H. Delehaye notes that the names Faustus, Januarius, and Martial correspond to the three martyrs of Córdoba (Les origines du culte des martyrs, 2nd ed., Brussels 1933, p. 364). In 1250, during the episcopate of A. de Peralto, the Jews crucified the little St. Dominguito del Val, whose relics are preserved in the chapel dedicated to him in the Cathedral.
Saragozza (Zaragoza), archdiocese of Madonna del Pilar, alabaster statue. Sanctuary of the Pilar – Saragozza.
Churches. – Saragossa has two cathedrals: the “Seo,” from Sedes, dedicated to the Most Holy Saviour, and the shrine of “Nuestra Señora del Pilar,” patroness of all Spain. Clement X, by a bull dated 11 Feb. 1675, decreed the union of the two cathedrals: the Chapter serves in both, half in one and half in the other, exchanging annually. Pope Pius XI, by a decree of 17 May 1922, granted the canons the use of the mitre only on the feast of Our Lady of the Pillar (12 Oct.), on condition that the pontifical Mass be celebrated by the Ordinary “pro tempore.”
The “Seo” had its primitive building destroyed by the invading Arabs. Hanoa ben Abdala built there the principal mosque, which was converted into a cathedral at the Reconquest in 1118; the works, begun in 1119, continued in the following centuries. Archbishop Alonso de Aragón in 1490 raised the two side aisles to the height of the central one and added two more, enlarging the edifice to five naves, divided by four rows of pillars with figured capitals; the choir has wooden stalls from the early 15th century, and the “transcoro” erected by Tudelilla in 1538 with statues of the martyrs Laurence and Vincent and reliefs depicting scenes from their lives. At the centre, beneath a gilded domed baldachin, stands the statue of the Risen Saviour. In the “Capilla mayor,” on the altar, is a Gothic retable in alabaster begun in 1431 by Pere Johan and finished in 1477 by Hans, with scenes from the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ and of the saints (reproduced above, pl. 43); there is also the Gothic tomb of Archbishop López Fernández de Luna (1382). In the chapel of St Bernard is the monument of Archbishop Fernando of Aragón. On the exterior, on the north-west side, is a Greco-Roman façade designed by Contini (1685), flanked by an octagonal tower. On the north-east side the external decoration is in Moorish style with brickwork, and to the east is a Renaissance portal.
The second cathedral of Saragossa is “Nuestra Señora del Pilar” or the “Virgen del Pilar,” which originated from a small chapel consecrated to the miraculous image of the Blessed Virgin, said to have appeared to the Apostle St James the Greater. The present building (130 m. x 65 m.) was constructed in 1681 from a design by the architect Herrera; it has three naves divided by twelve pillars, with ten domes and four corner towers. To the east is the “capilla de Nuestra Señora del Pilar,” of oval form and imitating the Holy House of Loreto; it is surmounted by a dome decorated by A. Velázquez and gleams with bronze, silver and precious marbles. Inside are three altars: that on the right has above a pillar (pilar) the small miraculous image in alabaster, resting on a silver plinth; the central altar has the Virgin enthroned; on the altar to the left is a bas-relief representing St James with his disciples. In the crypt are the tombs of many archbishops. To the west of the chapel stands the new cathedral, which has on the high altar a Gothic retable with scenes from the life of the Virgin by D. Forment (1505–15). In the north aisle the small domes were frescoed by Goya and Bayeu (1781–82).
