Roman Catholic Diocese of Segorbe-Castellón


The Diocese of Segorbe-Castellón is a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical territory located in north-eastern Spain, in the province of Castellón, part of the autonomous community of Valencia. The diocese forms part of the ecclesiastical province of Valencia, and is thus suffragan to the Archdiocese of Valencia.
In 1912 the diocese was bounded on the north by Castellón and Teruel, on the east by Castellón, on the south by Valencia, and on the west by Valencia and Teruel, had its jurisdiction in the civil Provinces of Castellón, Valencia, Teruel and Cuenca.
The cathedral of Segorbe, once a mosque, has been completely rebuilt in such a manner that it preserves no trace of Arab architecture. It is connected by a bridge with the old episcopal palace. Its time-stained tower and its cloister are built on a trapezoidal ground-plan. The church was reconsecrated in 1534, and in 1795 the nave was lengthened, and new altars added, in the episcopate of Lorenzo Gómez de Haedo.
The seminary is in the Jesuit college given by king Carlos III. The convents of the Dominicans, Franciscans, the Augustinian nuns, and the Charterhouse of Valdecristo have been converted to secular uses.

History

No name of any Bishop of Segorbe is known earlier than Proculus, who signed in the Third Council of Toledo. Porcarius assisted at the Council of Gundemar ; Antonius, at the Fourth Council of Toledo ; Floridius, at the seventh ; Eusicius, at the ninth and tenth ; Memorious, at the eleventh and twelfth ; Olipa, at the thirteenth ; Anterius at the fifteenth and sixteenth.
After this there are no information of its bishops until the Arab invasion, when its church was converted into a mosque.
In 1172 Pedro Ruiz de Azagra, son of the Lord of Estella, took the city of Albarracín, and succeeded in establishing there a bishop, who took the title of Arcabricense, and afterwards that of Segorbicense, thinking that Albarracín was nearer to the ancient Segorbe than to Ercavica or Arcabrica.
This choice of name follows the ideology of the Reconquest, according to which the bishops were simply restoring the old Christian entities only temporarily taken over by the Moors. In this way, the city of Albarracín became the seat of the bishops of Segorbe.
When Segorbe was conquered by king James I of Aragon in 1245, its church was purified, and Jimeno, Bishop of Albarracín, took possession of it. The bishops of Valencia opposed this, and Arnau of Peralta, Bishop of Valencia, entered the church of Segorbe by force of arms. The controversy being referred to Rome, and the bishops of Segorbe had part of their territory restored to them; but the Schism of the West supervened, and the status quo continued.
In 1571 Francisco Soto Salazar being bishop, the Diocese of Albarracín was separated from Segorbe.
Eminent among the bishops of Segorbe was Juan Bautista Pérez Rubert, who exposed the fraudulent chronicles. In modern times Domingo Canubio y Alberto, the Dominican, and Francisco Aguilar, author of various historical works, are worthy of mention.
In 1912 the city of Castellón de la Plana, though the capital of the province of Castellón, had no episcopal see: by the Concordat of 1851 the See of Tortosa, to which diocese a large part of the province belonged, was to be transferred to it.
In 1960 the see became the Diocese of Segorbe-Castellón. Following the De mutatione finium Dioecesium Valentinae-Segorbicensis-Dertotensis decree, of 31 May 1960, the parishes belonging to the Province of València were dismembered and aggregated to the Archdiocese of Valencia. On the other hand, the Nules, Vila-real, Castelló de la Plana, Lucena and Albocàsser parishes that had belonged to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tortosa were aggregated to the Diocese of Segorbe-Castellón along with the parish of Betxí. Francoist propaganda presented the changes as an occasion for rejoicing.

Bishops of Segorbe (6th and 7th centuries)

See suppressed

Bishops of Segorbe (1173–1259)

Bishops of Segorbe with seat in Albarracín. All the names are given in Spanish:
  1. 1173–1213: Martín
  2. 1213–1215: Hispano
  3. 1216–1222: Juan Gil
  4. 1223–1234: Domingo
  5. 1235–1238: Guillermo
  6. 1245–1246: Jimeno
  7. 1246–1259: Pedro

    Bishops of Segorbe-Albarracín (1259–1576)

All the names are given in Spanish:
  1. 1259–1265: Martín Álvarez
  2. 1265–1272: Pedro Garcés
  3. 1272–1277: Pedro Jiménez de Segura
  4. 1284–1288: Miguel Sánchez
  5. 1288–1301: Aparicio
  6. 1302–1318: Antonio Muñoz
  7. 1319–1356: Sancho Dull
  8. 1356–1362: Elías
  9. 1362–1369: Juan Martínez de Barcelona
  10. 1369–1387: Iñigo de Valterra
  11. 1387–1400: Diego de Heredia
  12. 1400–1409: Francisco Riquer y Bastero
  13. 1410–1427: Juan de Tauste
  14. 1428–1437: Francisco de Aguiló
  15. 1438–1445: Jaime Gerart
  16. 1445–1454: Gisberto Pardo de la Casta
  17. 1455–1459: Luis de Milá y Borja
  18. 1461–1473: Pedro Baldó
  19. 1473–1498: Bartolomé Martí
  20. 1498–1499: Juan Marrades
  21. 1500–1530: Gilberto Martí
  22. 1530–1556: Gaspar Jofre de Borja
  23. 1556–1571: Juan de Muñatones
  24. 1571–1576: Francisco de Soto Salazar

    Bishops of Segorbe (1577–1960)

  25. 1577–1578: Francisco Sancho
  26. 1579–1582: Gil Ruiz de Liori
  27. 1583–1591: Martín de Salvatierra
  28. 1591–1597: Juan Bautista Pérez Rubert
  29. 1599–1609: Feliciano de Figueroa
  30. 1610–1635: Pedro Ginés de Casanova
  31. 1636–1638: Juan Bautista Pellicer
  32. 1639–1652: Diego Serrano de Sotomayor
  33. 1652–1660: Francisco Gavaldá
  34. 1661–1672: Anastasio Vives de Rocamora
  35. 1673–1679: José Sanchís y Ferrandis
  36. 1680–1691: Crisóstomo Royo de Castellví
  37. 1691–1707: Antonio Ferrer y Milán
  38. 1708–1714: Rodrigo Marín Rubio
  39. 1714–1730: Diego Muños de Baquerizo
  40. 1731–1748: Francisco de Cepeda y Guerrero
  41. 1749–1751: Francisco Cuartero
  42. 1751–1757: Pedro Fernández Velarde
  43. 1758–1770: Blas de Arganda
  44. 1770–1780: Alonso Cano
  45. 1780–1781: Lorenzo Lay Anzano
  46. 1783–1808: Lorenzo Gómez de Haedo
  47. 1814–1816: Lorenzo Algüero Ribera
  48. 1816–1821: Francisco de la Dueña Cisneros
  49. * 1822–1824: Vicente Ramos García
  50. 1825–1837: Juan Sanz Palanco
  51. 1847–1864: Domingo Canubio y Alberto
  52. 1865–1868: Joaquín Hernández Herrero
  53. 1868–1875: José Luis Montagut
  54. 1876–1880: Mariano Miguel Gómez
  55. 1880–1899: Francisco Aguilar
  56. 1900–1907: Manuel García Cerero y Soler
  57. 1907–1911: Antonio María Massanet
  58. 1913–1934: Luis Amigó Ferrer
  59. ?–1936: Miguel Serra Sucarrats
  60. 1944–1950: Ramón Sanahuja y Marcé
  61. 1951–1960: José Pont y Gol

    Bishops of Segorbe-Castellón (since 1960)

  62. 1960–1970: José Pont y Gol
  63. 1971–1996: José María Cases Deordal
  64. 1996–2005: Juan Antonio Reig Pla
  65. 2006–today: Casimiro López Llorente