The diocese of Vissalsa (Latin: Dioecesis Vissalsensis) is a suppressed and titular see of the Roman Catholic Church, in the province of Mauretania Caesariensis. [1] [2] [3] [4] The seat of the bishopric is not known to history.
A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese".
Mauretania Caesariensis was a Roman province located in what is now Algeria in the Maghreb. The full name refers to its capital Caesarea Mauretaniae, in order to distinguish it from neighboring Mauretania Tingitana, which was ruled from Tingis.
A cathedra or bishop's throne is the seat of a bishop. It is a symbol of the bishop's teaching authority in the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion churches. Cathedra is the Latin word for a chair with armrests, and it appears in early Christian literature in the phrase "cathedrae apostolorum", indicating authority derived directly from the apostles; its Roman connotations of authority reserved for the Emperor were later adopted by bishops after the 4th century. A church into which a bishop's official cathedra is installed is called a cathedral.
The only known bishop of this African diocese is Saturnino, who took part in the synod assembled in Carthage in 484 by King Huneric of the Vandal Kingdom, after which Saturnino was exiled, possibly to Vandal-controlled Sicily.
Huneric or Hunneric or Honeric was King of the Vandal Kingdom (477–484) and the oldest son of Genseric. He abandoned the imperial politics of his father and concentrated mainly on internal affairs. He was married to Eudocia, daughter of western Roman Emperor Valentinian III (419–455) and Licinia Eudoxia. The couple had one child, a son named Hilderic.
The Vandal Kingdom or Kingdom of the Vandals and Alans was established by the Germanic Vandal people under Genseric, and ruled in North Africa and the Mediterranean from 435 AD to 534 AD.
Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 20 regions of Italy. It is one of the five Italian autonomous regions, in Southern Italy along with surrounding minor islands, officially referred to as Regione Siciliana.
Today Vissalsa survives as a titular bishopric and the current bishop is Neal James Buckon, auxiliary bishop of the military ordination in the United States. [5]
A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese. By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches is that he be ordained for a specific place. There are more bishops than there are functioning dioceses. Therefore, a priest appointed not to head a diocese as its diocesan bishop but to be an auxiliary bishop, a papal diplomat, or an official of the Roman Curia is appointed to a titular see.
