Muzuca was a Roman Town of the Roman province of Byzacena during late antiquity.[1] The town has tentatively been identified with the ruins at Henchir-Besra in modern Tunisia.[2][3] Very little is known of the city,[4] though in situ epigraphical evidence gives us the name and that in late antiquity it achieved the status of Municipium.[5]
Muzuca was also the seat of an ancient episcopal see of the Roman Catholic Church,[6] survives as a titular bishopric.[7]
There are three bishops attributable to this African diocese.[8][9]
The Catholic Restituto and the Donatist Idassio took part in the Carthage conference of 411, which brought together the Catholic and Donatist bishops of Roman Africa.[10]
Innocent attended the synod gathered in Carthage by the Vandal king of Hunaric in 484, after which he was exiled.
Today Muzuca di Bizacena survives as a titular bishop's seat; the current titular bishop is Luka Sylvester Gopep.
References
- 1.Joseph Bingham, Origines Ecclesiasticae (W. Straker, 1834) p444.
- 2."TM Places".
- 3.Muzuca in Byzacena at gcatholic.org.
- 4.Elizabeth Fentress, Where were North African Nundinae held.
- 5.Charles Tissot, Rapport sur la mission en Tunisie de M. Julien Poinssot, séance du 28 septembre 1883 (1883) Vol.27 Num.3 pp. 329-343, page 40.
- 6.Gurzensis at catholic-hierarchy.org.
- 7.Muzuca in Byzacena at gcatholic.org.
- 8.Pius Bonifacius Gams, Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae, (Leipzig, 1931), p. 467.
- 9.Stefano Antonio Morcelli, Africa christiana, Volume I, (Brescia 1816), p. 238.
- 10.J. Mesnage, L'Afrique chrétienne, (Paris 1912), p. 38.