Bavagaliana was a town in the Roman province of Byzacena, now part of Tunisia.
In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic and, until the tetrarchy, the largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The word province in Modern English has its origins in the Latin term used by the Romans.
Byzacena was a Late Roman province in the central part of Roman North Africa, which is now roughly Tunisia, split off from Africa Proconsularis.
Tunisia (officially the Republic of Tunisia) is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa, covering 165,000 square kilometres. Its northernmost point, Cape Angela, is the northernmost point on the African continent. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia's population was 11.435 million in 2017. Tunisia's name is derived from its capital city, Tunis, which is located on its northeast coast.
It became at some stage the seat of a Christian bishopric. The only diocesan bishop of the see who is known by name was Bonifacius, who lived at the time of Thrasamund, the Vandal king (450–523) who ended the many years of persecution of Catholic Christians that began under his uncle Huneric.
A diocesan bishop, within various religious denominations, is a bishop in pastoral charge of a(n arch)diocese, as opposed to a titular bishop or archbishop, whose see is only nominal, not pastoral.
Thrasamund (450–523), King of the Vandals and Alans (496–523), was the fourth king of the north African Kingdom of the Vandals. He reigned longer than any other Vandal king in Africa other than his grandfather Genseric.
The Vandals were a large East Germanic tribe or group of tribes that first appear in history inhabiting present-day southern Poland. Some later moved in large numbers, including most notably the group which successively established kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula and then North Africa in the 5th century.
Bonifacius was primate of Byzacena in 517 and a participant in the Council of Carthage (525). [1]
Primate is a title or rank bestowed on some archbishops in certain Christian churches. Depending on the particular tradition, it can denote either jurisdictional authority or (usually) ceremonial precedence.
No longer a residential bishopric, Bavagaliana is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see. [2]
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with approximately 1.3 billion baptised Catholics worldwide as of 2017. As the world's "oldest continuously functioning international institution", it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilisation. The church is headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the Pope. Its central administration, the Holy See, is in the Vatican City, an enclave within the city of Rome in Italy.
A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese".
