Bida (North Africa)

Detail of the Tabula Peutingeriana map (1-4th century CE ; facsimile edition by Conradi Millieri, 1887/1888) centered on Bida

Bida is a former Ancient city and bishopric in Roman Africa, now a Latin Catholic titular see.

Its presumed location are the ruins at present Djemaa Saharidj in modern Algeria.^[1]

History

The city was important enough in the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis to become a suffragan bishopric of its capital's Metropolitan Archbishop, but was to fade. Campanus represented Bida at the Council of Carthage (424).

The diocese was nominally restored as a Latin Catholic titular bishopric in the 17th century as Bitha or Bita, renamed Bida in 1923–25.

It has had the following incumbents, all of the lowest (episcopal) rank :

Guillaume Mahot, Paris Foreign Missions Society M.E.P. (1680.01.29 – 1684.06.04)
Jean-Paul-Hilaire-Michel Courvezy, M.E.P. (1832.04.05 – 1857.05.01)
Franz Rudolf Bornewasser (1921.04.23 – 1922.03.12) (later Archbishop)
Frederick Eis (1922.07.08 – 1926.05.05)
Carlos Labbé Márquez (1926.08.02 – 1929.12.20)
James Augustine McFadden (1932.05.12 – 1943.06.02)
Alexandre-Joseph-Charles Derouineau (德為能), M.E.P. (1943.12.08 – 1946.04.11) (later Archbishop)
Aloysius Joseph Willinger, Redemptorists (C.SS.R.) (1946.12.12 – 1953.01.03)
Ubaldo Evaristo Cibrián Fernández, Passionists (C.P.) (1953.03.07 – 1965.04.14)
John Joseph Cassata (1968.03.12 – 1969.08.22)
Norman Francis McFarland (1970.06.05 – 1976.02.10)
Heinrich Machens (1976.03.24 – 2001.02.17)
Sofronio Aguirre Bancud, Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament (S.S.S.) (2001.05.24 – 2004.11.06)
Julio Hernando García Peláez (2005.02.11 – 2010.06.05)
Eugenio Scarpellini (2010.07.15 – 2013.07.26)
Áureo Patricio Bonilla Bonilla, Friars Minor (O.F.M.) (2013.10.29 – ...), Apostolic Vicar of Galápagos (Ecuador)

^ Graham, Alexander (1902). Roman Africa. Longmans, Green, and Co. p. 312. Retrieved Dec 29, 2020.