Sufar

The Diocese of Sufar, is an ancient episcopal seat of the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis.[1] The location of the seat of the bishopric is now lost to history, but it was somewhere in today's Algeria.[2]

Mauretania Caesariensis (125 AD)

Christianity seems to have come to Mauretania Caesariensis later than other parts of Roman North Africa, thereby avoiding many of the earlier controversies. Like most bishopric in the west of the province Sufar appears to have flourished only from in late antiquity some time after the Council of Nicaea. There are only Two bishops of Sufar mentioned by the ancient sources, both in the year 484. This leads Mesnage to hypothesize the existence of two towns called Sufar,[3] An alternative interpretation is that the term Sufaritanus is the contraction of Sufasaritanus, and in this case one of the two bishops of 484 would belong to the diocese of Sufasar. Sufar seems to have ceased to effectively function only with the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb.

Today Sufar survives as a titular bishopric[4] and the current bishop is Robert P. Reed, who replaced Robert Francis Prevost in 2016.[5]

Known bishops

See also

References
  1. David Cheney, Diocese of Sufar, at Catholic-Hierarchy.org.
  2. Diocese Entry at www.gcatholic.org.
  3. J. Mesnage, L'Afrique chrétienne, Paris 1912, p. 501
  4. Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013, ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), "Sedi titolari", pp. 819-1013
  5. David Cheney, Diocese of Sufar, at Catholic-Hierarchy.org.


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