Conza, a city of the
province of Avellino, Southern Italy, was twice destroyed by earthquakes (980,
1694), and was at one time nearly abandoned. The first known Bishop of Conza is Lando, who was present at the Roman synod of 743 held under
Pope Zachary. In 989, the diocese of Conza was a suffragan (subordinate) of the archbishops of Salerno. In 990, a very strong earthquake struck the area of Benevento. In Conza half the town was destroyed, and, according to the "Chronicon Cassinense", the bishop was killed in the disaster.
The archbishopric On 22 July 1051,
Pope Leo IX, who was visiting the monastery of Montecassino, confirmed the rights, privileges, and possessions of the
Church of Salerno. These included the right of consecrating the bishops of Conza. Decisions by
Pope Alexander II (1061–1073) and by
Pope Gregory VII (1073–1085) also confirmed the subordinate status of the bishops of Conza to the archbishops of Salerno. The bishops resided either in their feudal stronghold of
Santomenna or at Campagna. On 20 July 1088, at the request of
Roger Borsa, Duke of Apulia and Calabria,
Pope Urban II again confirmed the rights and privileges of the archbishops of Salerno. He again stated that the diocese of Conza was a suffragan of the metropolitan of Salerno. He remarks, however, that the bishops of Acerenza and Conza have taken to calling themselves metropolitan archbishops, though he does not know why. He allows them to keep the title and he will grant
pallia, but they are both still subordinate to the metropolitan of Salerno, and both the archbishop of Salerno and the papal legate must participate in the selection of an archbishop of Acerenza and of Conza. The suffragan dioceses of the archdiocese of Conza, at the end of the 12th century, were: Muro Lucano, Satriano, Monteverde, Lacedonia, S. Angelo de' Lombardi, and Bisaccia.
Frederick II The
Emperor Frederick II was not an attentive monarch when it came to the appointment of bishops in his realms, particularly in southern Italy. On 25 September 1225,
Pope Honorius III wrote him a particularly tart letter, announcing that he had taken action to fill episcopal posts which had long been vacant. These were Capua, Salerno, Brindisi, Conza, and Aversa. For Conza, he appointed the Prior of the monastery of S. Maria de Urbe, Andreas. The bearer of the letter was the new archbishop of Salerno, whom the pope expected Frederick to receive courteously (
exhibitorem praesentium vultu sereno recipiat).
The Sede vacante of 1268 to 1274 The previous archbishop of Conza had died in 1268, some time before the death of
Pope Clement IV, on 29 November 1268. The meeting of the canons of the cathedral Chapter to elect a successor produced a double election, of Andrea de Albeto and of the priest Roger of Eliseum. Appeal was taken to Pope Clement IV, who assigned Cardinal Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, Cardinal Deacon of S. Niccolo in Carcere, to examine the case as papal Auditor. Hearings were held, and oaths were taken, but the case was not decided. The death of the pope brought on the longest vacancy in papal history, during which no legal rulings could be issued and no bishops appointed or approved. Clement's successor,
Pope Gregory X (Tedaldo Visconti), accepted the papal office in early February 1272, and reassigned the case to Cardinal Orsini. He then set out for Lyon, to preside at an
ecumenical council, which was to open on 1 May 1274. But the pope subsequently decided, on 18 August 1274, to hand over the case to the Archbishop of Capua to rehear and issue a decision, and, with papal authority, to carry out the consecration of an archbishop for Conza. In 1672, the city of Conza had a population estimated at 350 persons; in 1759, the population was estimated at 600 persons. The great earthquake of 1732 struck as Mass was in progress in the cathedral. The cathedral fell in. Fifty of those in attendance were killed, the other twenty-five wounded in various degrees of seriousness. Many houses were destroyed copmpletely, the rest were seriously damaged.
After Napoleon Following the extinction of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, the
Congress of Vienna authorized the restoration of the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples. Since the French occupation had seen the abolition of many Church institutions in the Kingdom, as well as the confiscation of most Church property and resources, it was imperative that
Pope Pius VII and
King Ferdinand IV reach agreement on restoration and restitution. A concordat was finally signed on 16 February 1818, and ratified by Pius VII on 25 February 1818. Ferdinand issued the concordat as a law on 21 March 1818. The re-erection of the dioceses of the kingdom and the ecclesiastical provinces took more than three years. The right of the king to nominate the candidate for a vacant bishopric was recognized, as in the Concordat of 1741, subject to papal confirmation (preconisation). On 27 June 1818, Pius VII issued the bull
De Ulteriore, in which he reestablished the metropolitan archbishopric of Conza. At the same time he abolished the diocese of Satriano, which had been united
aeque principaliter with the diocese of Campagna, and incorporated the territory of Satriano into the diocese of Campagna. The diocese of Campagna was assigned to the archdiocese of Conza, in such a way that the archbishop of Conza was also the perpetual administrator of the diocese of Campagna.
Nineteenth Century In 1885, the diocese of Conza had a total population of 75,371 in twenty-seven parishes. The seminary had eleven teachers and forty students. ==Chapter and cathedral==