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COMAYAGUA

Comacchio, Diocese of (Comaclensis), suffragan of Ravenna. Comacchio is a town in the province of Ferrara in the Romagna, Italy, situated on islands near the mouths of the Po, and connected with the sea by a canal built by Cardinal Palotta. The an- cient name of the town was Cymaclum. The first known Bishop of Comacchio was Pacatianus, present in 503 at a synod held in Rome under Pope Symma- chus. St. Gregory the Great reckons the see among the suffragans of Raverma. In 708 a certain Vincen- tius is mentioned as Bishop of Comacchio. In the seventh century Gregory, the youthful son of Isaac, Exarch of Ravenna, died at Comacchio in a monas- tery dedicated to St. Maurus, as is recorded in a Greek inscription. During the fifteenth century the town was held by the Venetians, but was retaken in 1.509 by Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara, and fortified by him. At the death of Alfonso in 1.597, Comacchio, with the rest of the Duchy of Ferrara passed under the con- trol of the Holy See. One of its bishops, Alfonso Pandolfo (1631), was a polished writer and poet, and established the Accademia del Fluttuanli. In the vicinity of Comacchio is the ancient shrine of Santa Maria in Aula Regia, approached by a long portico of 142 arches, built in 1647 by the papal legate. Cardi- nal Giovanni Stefano Dongo. In 1708 Emperor Joseph I, on the pretence of ha\'ing an ancient claim on the city seized Comacchio, which was, however, restored in 1724. In 1796 the town was occupied by the French. The famous Behedictine Abbey of Pom- posa is in the Diocese of Comacchio. The diocese has a population of 40,630, with 1 14 parishes, 24 churches and oratories, 26 secular and 6 regular priests, 1 re- ligious house of men, and 1 of women.

Cappelletti. Le chiexe d'ltalia (Venice, 1844), It, 579; CoRRADiNus, Relatio jurium sedui apost, in civil. Comaclensem (Rome. 1741); Chevalier, Topo-Bibl. (Paris, 1894-99), s. v.; Ann, ecci. (Rome, 1907).

U. Benigni.

Comana, a titular see of Asia Minor. According to ancient geographers, Comana was situated in Cappa- docia (Cataonia). Eustathius (Comment, ad Dionys., 694) surnames it Chryse, "Golden". Another sur- name in ejiigraphy is Hieropolis, owing to a famous temple of the SjTian goddess Enyo or Ma. Strabo and Ca-sar visited it; the former (XI, 521; XII, 535, 537) enters into long details about its position on the Sarus (Seihoun), the temjile and its hieroduli. St. Basiliscus was put to death at Comana and was buried there; according to Palladius, the historian of St. Chrysostom, he was bishop of the city, but this is very doubtful. Its bishop, Elpidius, was present at the Council of Nicsea, in 325. Leontius, a Semi-Arian, held the see in the time of the Emperor Jovian. Heraclius appeared at Chalcedon in 451: Comana was then a suffragan of Melitene, the raetro]3olis of Armenia Se- cunda; since then it figures as such in most of the "Notitiaeepiscopatuura" to the twelfth century. Two other bishops are known: Hormizes, or Hormisdas, about 458 (letter to the Emperor Leo; see also Photius, Biblioth., Cod. 51) and Theodorus at the Fifth (Ecumenical Council, in 553. The ruins of Comana are visible ten miles north-west of Guksun (Cocussus), in the vilayet of Adana (Lequien, I, 447; Ramsay, Hist. Geogr. of Asia Minor, passim). An- other Comana, suffragan of NeocEPsarea, was situated in Pontus Polemiacus; it had also a temple of Mil, and was surnamed Hierocssarea. It was captured by Sulla, 83 b. c. Slx bishops are mentioned by Lequien (I, 517); the first is St. Alexander the Char- coal-Seller, consecrated by St. Gregory the Wonder- Worker. This town is to-day Gomenek, orGomanak, a village .south-west of Neocsesarea (Niksar), in the vilayet of Sivas. Lequien (I, 1009) gives another Comana in Paniphylia Prima, suffragan of Side; the true name is Conana. Zoticus, who lived at the time of Montanus, was Bishop of Conana, or of Comama,

not of Comana in Cappadocia. Cosmas of Conana appeared at Constantinople in 680. Conana is to-day Gunen, in the vilayet of Adana.

Smith, Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Geogr. (London, 1878), I, 649. S. PETEIDliS.

Comayagua, Diocese op, suffragan to Guatemala, includes the entire Republic of Honduras in Central America, a territory of about 46,250 square miles, and a population (1902), exclusive of uncivilized Indians, of 684,400, mostly baptized Catholics. It also in- cludes a group of islets in the Bay of Honduras (Rua- tdn, Bonacca, Utila, Barbareta, and Moret). The surface is mountainous, with many fertile plains and plateaux. Communication is difficult, as there are few good roads, but a railroad from Puerto Cortez to La Pimienta (sixty miles) is destined to reach the Pacific. The mineral wealth is great, and the trade in bananas very lucrative. The climate in the in- terior is usually healthy, but fevers are frequent along the low coast. The capital of the State, Tegucigalpa, has 17,000 inhabitants. The first missionaries were Franciscans, though the records of their labours have disappeared in the disastrous conflagrations that the wars of the nineteenth centurj- visited on Comayagua, and in which the archives of the cathedral perished. The diocese was established in 1527 by Clement VII, and confirmed in 15.39 by Paul III. It is supposed that Bishop Pedrasa, who went in that year to Tru- j illo, was the first bishop. Under the fourth, Jeronimo de Corella, Pius IV transferred (1561) the see to Nueva Valladolid, now Comayagua. The prosperous missions among the savage Indians on the north coast were broken up in 1601 by English pirates; colonists and missionaries were scattered, and the Indians (now about 90,000) relapsed into their original savagery. The revolution of 1821 did great damage to" the Church. Before that time there were more than 300 ecclesiastical foundations, and public worship was everywhere carried on with dignity. The revolution- ary Government confiscated the ecclesiastical property to the value of more than a million pesos, according to a presidential message of 1842. Since then parishes depended for public worship on precarious alms, and the clergy diminished in number. Nevertheless, tithes were still paid to the Church, and from them the bishop, the cathedral services, and the seminary were supported. The latter was open only to externs and only the sciences were taught; ecclesiastics and young men destined for the law were educated there together.

Between 1878 and 1880 the new president of Hon- duras, imposed by Guatemala, confiscated anew the ecclesiastical resources put together by the faithful, the parochial properties, residences of clergy and churches, abolished the tithes, and, to complete the ruin of the ecclesiastical order, suppressed in the uni- versity the courses of canon law and moral theology, and in the colleges even (he study of Latin. Tliese oppressive acts hampered greatly the proper forma- tion of the clergy, public worship, and the administra- tion of the diocese. Lately the seminary has been re- opened, but despite the separation of Church and State the former is subject to many restrictions. The civil government is no longer hostile, but in its name provincial and local authorities exhil)it no little hos- tility to the pari.sh priests. The episcopal city, which has SOOO inhabitants, suffered much from the civil wars of the period of federation (1823-39) and has never regained its former size or prosperity. Bishop Joseph Maria Martinez Cabanas (1908) is the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth of the line. The five parish priest-s of the Department of Com:xyagua re[)re- sent the former cathedral canons, and assist the bishop on occiislons; at his death they elect the vicar capitu- lar. There are seventy secular priests, and no regu- lars; the Government has never tolerated the return