SEVERO of MINORCA. - Bishop. Around 417 he wrote an encyclical letter « ad omnem ecclesiam »: De virtutibus ad Iudaeorum conversionem in Minoricensi insula factis (PL 20, 731-46; 41, 821-32).
It reports the stir caused among the population by the arrival of Orosio on the island of Minorca, bearing the relics of St. Stephen the Protomartyr (A.D. 416): numerous Jews, led by the head of the Synagogue, converted. The document is important both from the historical and the cultural point of view. Moreover, it is the oldest source available on Christianity in the Balearic Islands.
(photo Alinari)
BIBL.: Baronio was the first to publish the encyclical letter in 1594. See now G. Segui Vidal, La Carta-encicl. del obispo S., Palma di Maiorca 1937 (study and critical ed. with ample bibl.: cf. B. Altaner, in Theol. Revue, 38[1939], cols. 64-65); B. Altaner, Actus von Braga, in Zeitschr. f. Kirchengesch., 60 (1941), 456-68.