The Diocese of Cefalù () is a Latin diocese of the Catholic Church in north-central Sicily. Under the Greek church in the 8th and 9th centuries, it was a suffragan of the metropolitanate of Syracuse in the Patriarchate of Constantinople. When the Latin rite diocese was founded under the Normans, in 1131, it became a suffragan of the archdiocese of Messina. In 2000, Pope John Paul II made the diocese of Cefalù a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Palermo.
Girolamo di Marzo Ferro (1860) believed that the diocese was founded in the fifth century. At that time Sicily's dioceses were directly subject to the Papacy. The Emperor Leo III the Isaurian (717âÂÂ741) removed the dioceses of Sicily, including Cefalù, from Roman control and made them suffragans of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. In the mid-9th (or 10th) century, Basil of Ialimbana revised the geography of George of Cyprus with the addition of a Notitia episcopuum, in which the diocese of Cefalù appears as a suffragan of Syracuse.
The first known bishop of Cefalù was Nicetas, a bishop of the Greek rite and a suffragan of the metropolitan of Syracuse.
Following Nicetas, the Arab occupation of Sicily made the regular election of bishops impossible.
When the Normans established the diocese of Agrigento in 1093, Count Roger d'Hauteville fixed the boundaries of the diocese, which extended across central Sicily, from the Mediterranean in the south, to the Tyrrhenian Sea in the north. It included territory from Terme (Termini Imerese) to a point east of Cefalù, making most of the later diocese of Cefalù part of the diocese of Agrigento.
When King Roger II of Sicily (1130âÂÂ1154), rebuilt the city, the diocese was refounded as a Latin bishopric. Pope Anacletus II assigned it as a suffragan of the new archdiocese of Messina. The king appointed Iocelmus, the prior of the Augustinian monastery of Santa Maria de Balnearia as the first bishop, or rather bishop-elect. The evidence from 1136 to 1166 consistently refers to bishops Iocelmus, Harduinus, Daniel, and Boso. as "bishop-elect".
The coronation ceremonies of King James II of Aragon as king of Sicily took place in Palermo on 2 February 1286. The ritual was performed by Bishops Iuncta de Magistro Benintendi de Panormo of Cefalù, Philip of Squillace, and Tancredo of Nicastro. On 11 April 1286, Pope Honorius IV, whose policy favored the Angevin kings of Naples, excommunicated King James and his wife Constantia. On 18 November 1286, the pope deprived Bishop Iuncta and all his followers of their episcopal dignity, and ordered the papal legate, Cardinal Gerardo Bianchi, to depose them. The papal pique was pointless, since the new king of Naples since the death of Charles I of Naples, Charles of Salerno, had been captured by the Aragonese after the battle of Nisida on 5 June 1284, and was being held in prison in Cefalù.
During the episcopate of Bishop Jacobus de Nernia (1304âÂÂ1324), nearly all the properties belonging to the Church of Cefalù were appropriated by Sancho of Aragon, the illegitimate brother of King Frederick III of Sicily, who in 1304 was outfitting an expedition to the Aegean.
A confirmation of the privileges of the Church of Cefalù, granted by King Martin and Queen Maria on 10 June 1392, names King Roger as the ecclesiae ejusdem fundator (founder of that Church).
The Cathedral of the Holy Saviour was planned and begun under orders of King Roger II of Sicily in 1131, with the blessing of Pope Anacletus II (1130âÂÂ1138). The mosaics were commissioned by King Roger II in 1148. The basilica was consecrated on 10 April 1267, by Cardinal Rodolfo, Bishop of Albano, the Papal Legate. From its beginning the cathedral was served by a chapter which followed the rule of S. Augustine (O.S.A.). In 1671, however, under Bishop Giovanni Roano e Carrionero, the Chapter was converted by Pope Clement X into a corporation of secular priests. In accordance with Pope Clement's bull, the Chapter was composed of four dignities (Dean, Archdeacon, Cantor and Theologian) and eight Canons.
In the century between 1276 and 1376, for which there happens to be documentary evidence, the city of Cefalù saw its population drop from c. 11,000 to c. 2000. The Black Death no doubt played a major role in that catastrophe, though the Sicilian Vespers (which began in 1282) played a part.
On 5 March 1823 a major earthquake and a significant aftershock struck the entire northern coast of the island of Sicily. At Cefalù there was a tsunami that washed boats out to sea. The Gazzetta di Genoa reported that the upper part of the campanile of the convent of S. Francesco had fallen, and the convent of S. Pasquale had been destroyed, but that there had been no loss of life.
When the Diocese of Caltanissetta was established by Pope Gregory XVI on 25 May 1844, the parish and territory of the town of Vallelunga was removed from the diocese of Cefalù.
A well-known native son of the diocese of Cefalù was Cardinal Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro, who was born in the village of Polizzi. Rampolla was Pope Leo XIII's Secretary of State, and was the leading candidate to succeed him in the Conclave of 1903. Rampolla was vetoed, however, by the government of Franz Joseph I of Austria.
On the petition of Bishop Emanuele Catarinicchia (1978âÂÂ1987), in compliance with the regulations issued by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, Pope John Paul II granted the parish church of San Pietro in the town of Collesano, in the mountains southwest of Cefalù, the honor, rank, and privileges of a minor basilica on 4 January 1983.
In 2000, after extensive consultation with the Italian Episcopal Conference and the Congregation of Bishops, Pope John Paul II ordered a reorganization of the dioceses in Sicily. In the Apostolic Constitution "Ad maiori consulendum" of 2 December 2000, the diocese of Cefalù was removed from the ecclesiastical province of Messina and transferred to the ecclesiastical province of Palermo.
Latin rite: Erected: 1131
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