Diocese of Cephas

The Cephas diocese (in Latin Dioecesis Cephasena) is a suppressed seat in the Catholic Church.

Cephas, located on the Tigris River in Tur Abdin, is an ancient episcopal seat of the Roman province of Mesopotamia in the civil diocese of the East. It was part of the Patriarchate of Antioch and was a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Amida, as attested by a 6th century Notitiae Episcopatuum, official documentation that furnishes Eastern countries the list and hierarchical rank of the metropolitan and suffragan bishoprics of a church.

Bishops

There are two known historical bishops of this ancient episcopal seat.

The first, Benjamin, was bishop in the 4th century. He is mentioned in the biography of James the Egyptian, exiled in this region during the persecutions of the Emperer Julian (Latin: Flavius Claudius Iulianus Augustus also known as Julian the Apostate.

The second bishop is Noé who was bishop in the 5th century. He took part in the Council of Chalcedon of 451 AD and signed the Greek bishops' letter to Emperor Leo I (Latin: Flavius Valerius Leo Augustus) also known as Leo the Thracian in 458 following the killing of the pro-Chalcedonian Patriarch of Alexandria Proterius on the hands of anti-Chalcedonian Coptic mobs

In the following centuries the Cephas diocese also had Jacobite bishops.

Today Cefa survives as a titular bishop's seat; the seat has been vacant since May 5, 1974.

List of Bishops

(Not comprehensive)

• Benjamin (4th century)
• Noé (mid-5th century)

Titular bishops (modern era)

• Jules Georges Kandela (May 12, 1951 - March 7, 1952) - Confirmed by the Archieparch of Mosul of the Syrians)
• Miguel Antonio Medina and Medina (16 July 1952 - 23 March 1964) - Appointed bishop of Montería)
• Kuriakose Kunnacherry (9 December 1967 - 5 May 1974) - Succeeded eparch of Kottayam

Vacant since 1974