SEPHARDIM. – Descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews who emigrated from the Iberian Peninsula after the massacres of 1491 and the expulsion of 1492, settling in North Africa, the Mediterranean coasts (especially in the Balkans), Holland, the Spanish and Portuguese possessions in America, and later in New York and other states of the United States.
In their most important centers (Salonica, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Safed, Cairo, Ancona, Venice)
SEES, DIOCESE OF – Façade of the Cathedral (14th century).
pop. 271,000 Catholics, distributed across 5 archpriestships, 36 deaneries, and 514 parishes. It has 442 diocesan priests and 4 regular clergy; major and minor seminaries; 5 male and 13 female religious communities (Annuario Pontificio 1952, p. 373). It is a suffragan of the archdiocese of Rouen.
It is the ancient city of the Saii. Three 12th-century codices list the names of the bishops of S., but they are unreliable before the year 900; the list omits two certain bishops of the 6th century and two of the 9th. The Council of Orléans in 571 included a bishop Litardus, “Uxomensis” or of Uxoma, i.e., of the pagus of Exemes in the territory of the diocese of S. Passivus appears at the Councils of Orléans in the years 533, 538, 541, and 549; once he is called “Ecclesiae Boscotanae episcopus,” and twice “Sagensis Ecclesiae.” Leodobaudus was at the Council of Paris in 573; Amalcarus at that of Chalon-sur-Saône in 650; Sassobodo at the Council of Germigny in 843; a letter of Pope John VIII (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 3145) was addressed to Hildebrand in 878; when S. was sacked by the Normans, Hildebrand took refuge at Monciaus (Moussy-le-Neuf [Seine-et-Marne]) with the relics of St. Opportuna, sister of St. Crodengang of Metz, for whom he later built a church in Paris. His successor Adalelm wrote the life and miracles of this saint. Other bishops remembered include: Gervasius of Premastrato (1220–28), who was in contact with Popes Celestine III, Innocent III, and Honorius III; G. Bertout (1607–11), who participated in the conversion of Henry IV; L. d’Aquin (1699–1710).
The diocese was reorganized under the Concordat of 1801 by the bull Qui Christi Domini of Pope Pius VII. Pope Pius IX, by a brief dated March 7, 1871, raised the Cathedral to the rank of a minor basilica.
The original Cathedral was dedicated to the Holy Martyrs Gervasius and Protasius; it was destroyed by fire in 1048.
Sees, Diocese of – Façade of the Cathedral (14th century).
Amsterdam, London, Bordeaux, etc., the Sephardim founded synagogues with services according to the Sephardic rite, with preaching in Spanish. Among them were: Leone Ebreo (Jehudah Abrabanel), Amatus Lusitanus, Spinoza, Joseph ben Mashī (the Prince), Joseph Caro, Disraeli, and many statesmen, scholars, and men of letters. After a century, the driving force of the Sephardim began to decline, and they never again attained the splendor of their ancestors’ spirituality in Spain: Hasdai ibn Shaprut, Dunash ibn Labrat, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Judah Halevi, and many others. In France, Holland, and England they merged in the 19th century with their Ashkenazi coreligionists.