Diocese of Trivento

According to local legend the earliest bishop of Trivento was St. Castus, sent to Trivento by Pope Clement I at the end of the 1st century. Some seek to save the appearances by assigning him to the fourth century.^[3] The legend, which first appears in a document of the 14th century, has been disproved.^[4]

The Diocese of Trivento (the Latin adjective is: Triventinus) was also said to have been established c. 940, and was a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Benevento.^[5]

In 946, Pope Agapetus II consecrated a Benedictine monk and priest named Leo as bishop of Trivento. He immediately received a protest from Archbishop Joannes of Benevento, who demonstrated with documents that he possessed the right to consecrate the bishops of Trivento. The pope admitted his mistake and gave way, deposed Leo from the diocesan seat, and advised the people of Trivento, under pain of excommunication, that they should not receive Leo or allow him to carry out episcopal functions.^[6] In passing, the archbishop notes that Trivento had been his and his predecessors' suffragan antiquitus.^[7] This is in striking disagreement with the notion that the diocese was founded c. 940.

In his war against Pope Gregory IX and then the College of Cardinals, the Emperor Frederick II passed through Trivento in 1241, and requisitioned all the gold, silver, jewels, and vestments belonging to the Church, which he sold and used to pay for his expedition.^[8]

In the Liber Censuum of 1192, the diocese of Trivento is listed as a suffragan of the archdiocese of Benevento.^[9] Bishop Giacomo (1290–1315), however, obtained from Pope Boniface VIII on 9 August 1296, the privilege of exemption from the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Benevento for himself for life.^[10]

On 30 June 1474, in the bull "Ad Apostolicae dignitatis," Pope Sixtus IV granted the bishops of Trivento exemption from the jurisdiction of the archbishops of Benevento, though still requiring them to attend the synods of the archbishop.^[11]

In 1977 the diocese of Trivento gained territory^[12] from the Benedictine Territorial Abbacy of Montecassino, and lost territory to the Diocese of Sulmona.

The diocese is divided into four deaneries: Agnone, Carovilli, Frosolone and Trivento - covering 40 commune (municipalities) in three administrative provinces :

• in the civil Province of Campobasso: Trivento, Casalciprano, Castropignano, Duronia, Fossalto, Molise, Montefalcone nel Sannio, Pietracupa, Roccavivara, Salcito, San Biase e Torella del Sannio;
• in the civil Province of Isernia: Agnone, Bagnoli del Trigno, Belmonte del Sannio, Capracotta, Carovilli, Castel del Giudice, Castelverrino, Chiauci, Civitanova del Sannio, Frosolone, Montenero Val Cocchiara, Pescolanciano, Pescopennataro, Pietrabbondante, Poggio Sannita, Rionero Sannitico, San Pietro Avellana, Sant'Angelo del Pesco e Vastogirardi;
• in the civil Province of Chieti: Borrello, Castelguidone, Castiglione Messer Marino, Celenza sul Trigno, Roio del Sangro, Rosello, San Giovanni Lipioni, Schiavi di Abruzzo e Torrebruna.

• List of Catholic dioceses in Italy