Velefi was the name of an ancient town of

Roman North Africa Africa Proconsularis was a Roman province on the northern African coast that was established in 146 BC following the defeat of Carthage in the Third Punic War. It roughly comprised the territory of present-day Tunisia, the northeast of Algeria, ...

Location

Velefi is tentatively given as the ruins of Fedj-Es-Soyoud.''Barrington Atlas'', 2000, p. 527 (pl. 34 unlocated) The town is shown at Segment grid 3C3 of the

Tabula Peutingeriana ' (Latin for "The Peutinger Map"), also referred to as Peutinger's Tabula or Peutinger Table, is an illustrated ' (ancient Roman road map) showing the layout of the '' cursus publicus'', the road network of the Roman Empire. The map is a 13th-ce ...

Bishopric

Velefi was also the seat of an ancient episcopal see of the

Roman province The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was rule ...

of Numidia. One bishop is known of this African

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associa ...

, Ianuario (Gennaro), who participated in the synod meeting in Carthage in 484 called by the

Vandal The Vandals were a Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century. The Vandals migrated to the area betw ...

king

Huneric Huneric, Hunneric or Honeric (died December 23, 484) was King of the (North African) Vandal Kingdom (477–484) and the oldest son of Gaiseric. He abandoned the imperial politics of his father and concentrated mainly on internal affairs. He was m ...

, and who was later exiled. Today the diocese of Velefi survives as a

titular bishop 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 Catholic, Eastern Orthodox ...

ric; the current bishop is Helmut Bauer, auxiliary

bishop of Würzburg A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

. Bishops * Ianuario (mentioned in 484) * João Batista Muniz, C.SS.R. † (9 December 1966 – 16 March 1971 resigned) * Jorge Bernal Vargas, LC (7 December 1973 – 15 February 1978 resigned) * Vicente Macanan Navarra (23 April 1979 – 21 November 1987 appointed bishop of Kabankalan) * Helmut Bauer, 11 July 1988 Velefi is today a

ric of the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, with the ancient bishops' seat in Numidia.Velefi at ''gcatholic.org''
(english)

References

{{reflist Ancient Berber cities Catholic titular sees in Africa Former Roman Catholic dioceses in Africa Roman towns and cities in Tunisia