Diocese of Parenzo-Pola

(PARENTINA-POLENSIS)

The little town of Parenzo is picturesquely situated on a promontory extending into a creek of the Adriatic. At the head of this promontory, close to the water, rises the cathedral, the pride of Parenzo. Built by the first bishop, Euphrasius, in the time of Justinian, under whom Byzantine architecture first reached the shores of the Adriatic, it is the best preserved monument of that epoch in Austria. Moreover, archæologists have proved that it bears witness to the antiquity of Christianity in Parenzo, as it is the most recent of three churches, the second of which belongs to the time of Constantine the Great, while the oldest antedates that epoch: Parenzo was a separate diocese from the time of Euphrasius until in 1827 it was united with Pola, whose first bishop, Venerius, died about 520. At present Parenzo-Pola is under the jurisdiction of GÖrz and numbers 132,000 Catholics including 135 secular priests, one monastery with 21 monks, and 6 (or 8) convents containing 132 nuns.