TROIA, diocese of. - A city and diocese in the province of Foggia. It has a population of 31,004 inhabitants, almost all Catholic, distributed across 10 parishes served by 41 diocesan priests and 9 regular clergy; it has a seminary, 2 male religious communities and 6 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 433). It is immediately subject to the Holy See.
The city of T. originated from a group of refugees from ancient Ecae who escaped the destruction of 662 (Emperor Constans II of the East). The Byzantines enlarged it
TROPHIMUS, Saint - St. T. Fresco from the 12th century - Nerezi (Macedonia), church of St. Pantaleon
who, having been spared by the Israelites, stirred up a tumult in which Paul was arrested by the Roman tribunal of Claudius Lysias (Acts 21:27-33). In 66-67, while accompanying the Apostle on his final journey to the East, an illness forced him to stop at Miletus (2 Tim. 4:20). According to C. Spicq, G. Ricciotti, and P. De Ambroggi, Paul may already have been under arrest at that time, and some people accompanied him, including T.
The Roman Martyrology commemorates T. on December 29 as bishop of Arles and martyr; the tradition that St. Paul appointed him bishop of Arles during his journey to Spain is hardly consistent with 2 Tim. 4:20. For the Greeks, T. was one of the Seventy Disciples and was beheaded under Nero after St. Paul.