TERMOLI, DIOCESE OF. — A city and diocese in the province of Campobasso in the Molise region.
It covers an area of 800 sq km with a population of 65,000, of whom 64,000 are Catholics, distributed across 21 parishes served by 40 diocesan priests; it has a minor seminary (the theological course is completed at the Benevento Regional Seminary); it also has 12 female religious communities (Annuarium Pontificium 1953, p. 421). The diocese has been a suffragan of Benevento since its foundation in the 11th century.
Among its bishops are remembered: Jacopo Cini O.P. (1379); D. Girada, Servite (1381); F. Merzio (1602), collaborator of Cesare Baronio. In 1818, Pius VII with the bull De saltimone annexed the diocese of Guardia Alferia, located near Cerrato, founded in the second half of the 11th century, and united it in perpetuity with Termoli. After the death of Bishop Msgr. R. Caliandro (14 March 1924), his successor Msgr. O. Bernacchia, Bishop of Larino, was united *ad personam* with the see of Termoli (AAS, 16 [1924], pp. 430, 502).
The cathedral is inspired by that of Foggia; parts with horseshoe arches date back to the time of Frederick II; both the central apse and the upper part of the façade were rebuilt in the mid-13th century; it suffered a bombardment by the Turkish fleet in the 16th century, damage from earthquakes and a fire; the interior was covered with stucco; on the façade, beneath the statues, an inscription can be seen commemorating the donor Grimaldo, judge of Termoli, originally from Ravello (E. Bertaux, L'art dans l'Italie méridionale, Paris 1897, pp. 645-47, 702). In the cathedral is preserved a reliquary from the first half of the 13th century containing the skull of St. Timothy. On 9 January 1947, at the conferences of the Society of Christian Archaeology, Fr. F. Antonelli reported that on 11 May 1945 a wooden casket covered by a marble slab with an inscription dated 1239 was discovered beneath the presbytery of the cathedral, indicating that it contained the body of St. Timothy, disciple of St. Paul. It is not known how these relics came to Termoli between 1200 and 1239. Fr. F. Antonelli believes it was the work of some participant in the Fourth Crusade, and in 1204 during the sack of Constantinople, where the relics had been translated from Ephesus (cf. Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, 25 [1949], pp. 197-98).
Pope Pius XII, in an apostolic letter of 25 March 1947, declared St. Timothy bishop and martyr, together with Bishop St. Basso, principal patrons of the diocese of Termoli (AAS, 41 [1949], pp. 539-41).
Between the sea and the cathedral, Frederick II had a citadel built, of which the large square tower flanked by four round turrets remains, and on it could be read the name of Frederick II (E. Bertaux, Les arts de l'Orient musulman dans l'Italie méridionale, in Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, 15 [1895], pp. 433-34).