Vulturia was a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

and

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 ...

era

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

of Mauretania Caesariensis in

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

It was a town in 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 Mauretania Caesariensis , in present-day

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

. and has been tentatively identified with ruins near Cape Falcon, Aïn El Turk (outside of Oran,

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

).Cape Falcon
at Mapcarta. It was a flourishing city until the Arab invasion, at which time it became ''diocese in partibus infidelium'' as an area where the Christian community was overwhelmed by the

Muslim conquest of the Maghreb The Muslim conquest of the Maghreb ( ar, الْفَتْحُ الإسلَامِيُّ لِلْمَغرِب) continued the century of rapid Muslim conquests following the death of Muhammad in 632 and into the Byzantine-controlled territories of ...

. The cape is a flat plain adjacent to the sea, with a

mesa A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge or hill, which is bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and stands distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas characteristically consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks capped by a ...

rising behind the plain, isolating it from the rest of Oran. The cape is today the site of Oran airport.

Bishopric

The city was also the seat of an ancient Christian

bishopric 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 associate ...

. We know only one bishop, of the town, Reparato, who took part in the

Council of Carthage (484) The Councils of Carthage were church synods held during the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries in the city of Carthage in Africa. The most important of these are described below. Synod of 251 In May 251 a synod, assembled under the presidency of Cyprian ...

by the

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 ...

, after which Reparato was exiled. Today the bishopric of Vulturia survives as

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 archbis ...

and since 1933 has had six bishops. The current titular bishop is Rodrigo Mejía Saldarriaga, former apostolic vicar of Soddo who replaced

Paolo Romeo Paolo Romeo (born 20 February 1938) is a cardinal and archbishop emeritus of Palermo. He was appointed to the see of Palermo by Pope Benedict XVI on 19 December 2006. Romeo was the fifth of nine children. After primary school he entered the sem ...

in 2006. Other bishops of Vultura include Francesco Imberti (5 Sep 1966 Appointed – 27 Jan 1967) and

Marco Cé Marco Cé (; 8 July 1925 – 12 May 2014) was an Italian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the Patriarch of Venice from 1978 to 2002 and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1979. Biography Marco Cé was born in Izano in 1925 to ...

(22 Apr 1970 – 7 Dec 1978).

References

{{reflist, 2 Ancient Berber cities Catholic titular sees in Africa Roman towns and cities in Mauretania Caesariensis