Assuras, sometimes given as Assura or Assur, was a town in the

Roman province The Roman provinces (, pl. ) 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 ruled by a Roman appointed as Roman g ...

Proconsular Africa Africa was a Roman province on the northern coast of the continent of Africa. It was established in 146 BC, following the Roman Republic's conquest of Carthage in the Third Punic War. It roughly comprised the territory of present-day Tunisi ...

. Ruins of its temples and theatres and other public buildings are at ''Henchir-Zenfour''.

Bishopric

At an early stage Assuras became the centre of a Christian

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, 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 Roman province, prov ...

. Records are extant of the names of seven of its bishops. The first of these is Fortunatianus. He was deposed because of defecting from the Catholic faith in the

Decian persecution Christians were persecuted in 250 AD under the Decius, Roman emperor Decius. He had issued an edict ordering everyone in the empire to perform a sacrifice to the Roman gods and the well-being of the emperor. The sacrifices had to be performed ...

. Saint

Cyprian Cyprian (; ; to 14 September 258 AD''The Liturgy of the Hours according to the Roman Rite: Vol. IV.'' New York: Catholic Book Publishing Company, 1975. p. 1406.) was a bishop of Carthage and an early Christian writer of Berbers, Berber descent, ...

of Carthage speaks of him in a letter that he wrote to the Christians of Assuras in about 252, which shows that he tried to recover the see from which he had been driven. He was replaced by Epictetus, who died before 256, the year in which his successor Victor took part in a council at Carthage convoked by Cyprian to deal with the problem of the '' lapsi''.Pius Bonifacius Gams
''Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae''
Leipzig 1931, p. 464Stefano Antonio Morcelli
''Africa christiana''
Volume I, Brescia 1816, pp. 85–87Joseph Mesnage
''L'Afrique chrétienne''
Paris 1912, pp. 168–169 Anatole Toulotte
''Géographie de l'Afrique chrétienne''
vol. I Proconsulaire, Rennes-Paris 1892, pp. 128-133 Praetextatus was at the council held at Cabarsussi in 393 by a breakaway group of

Donatists Donatism was a schism from the Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Carthage from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and their prayers and sacraments to ...

led by Maximianus and signed its acts. The participants were condemned in the following year by a council that the main Donatist body, which recognized Primianus as Bishop of Carthage, held at Bagai.

Saint Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berbers, Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia (Roman province), Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced th ...

says Praetextatus was one of the twelve bishops who consecrated Maximianus as Bishop of Carthage. The successor of Praetextatus, Rogatus, was converted to the Catholic faith some time after 397. The Catholic Bishop of Assuras Evangelus took part in councils held at Carthage in

397 Year 397 ( CCCXCVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. In the Roman Empire, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesarius and Atticus (or, less frequently, year 1150 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denominatio ...

401 __NOTOC__ Year 401 ( CDI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Vincentius and Fravitus (or, less frequently, year 1154 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination ...

, and 411. The last of these was a meeting of Catholic and Donatist bishops, but Assuras was represented only by Evangelus, since the Donatist bishop of the town had died shortly before. The last Bishop of Assuras known by name was Peregrinus, who was one of the Catholic bishops summoned to a meeting in Carthage in 484 by the Vandal 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 ma ...

and then exiled to

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...

. Assuras is still mentioned as a bishopric in an early 8th-century Byzantine ''

Notitiae Episcopatuum The ''Notitiae Episcopatuum'' (singular: ''Notitia Episcopatuum'') were official documents that furnished for Eastern countries the list and hierarchical rank of the metropolitan and suffragan bishoprics of a church. In the Roman Church (the mos ...

'' of the

Patriarchate of Alexandria The Patriarch of Alexandria is the archbishop of Alexandria, Egypt. Historically, this office has included the designation "pope" (etymologically "Father", like "Abbot"). The Alexandrian episcopate was revered as one of the three major episc ...

. No longer a residential diocese, Assuras is today listed by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

as a

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbi ...

.''Annuario Pontificio 2013'' (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ), p. 840

References

{{Reflist Catholic titular sees in Africa Former populated places in Africa