VALENZA DEL BRASILE (VALENÇA), DIOCESE of. — Diocese in the State of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Episcopal residence in Marques de Valença.
It has an area of 5,199 sq. km., with a population of 178,852 inhabitants, of whom 169,000 are Catholics. It has 17 parishes, with a minor seminary, 12 diocesan priests and 15 religious priests, 6 male and 13 female religious communities.
The diocese was erected by Pope Pius XI with the apostolic constitution Ex Apostolico officio of 27 March 1925, by detaching a group of parishes from the dioceses of Barra do Rio Grande and Niterói, and raising to cathedral status the parish church dedicated to the Assumption in the city of V., chosen as the episcopal see. The diocese is suffragan to S. Sebastiano di Rio de Janeiro. Its first bishop was Mgr Andrea de Arcoverde Albuquerque Cavalcanti, until 1936.