Furnos was the name of two towns and bishoprics in the Roman provinceofProconsular Africa (in present-day Tunisia). They are referred to as Furnos Maior and Furnos Minor, as now as separate Latin Catholic titular sees.
Each was important enough to become a suffragan bishopric of the African provincial capital's Metropolitan Archbishop of Carthage.
The towns and the bishoprics disappeared after the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, but their dioceses have been revived as titular sees.[1]
There are records of early bishops of one or other of the two sees. Third-century Geminius died shortly before Saint Cyprian; a Donatist Florentinus attended a conference in 411; and a Simeon was at the Council of Carthage (525). Simeon belonged to Furnos Maior, but it is uncertain of which town the other two were bishops.[2]
Victor of Vita recounts that in the persecution by the VandalsofGenseric in 430 or 431 Bishop Mansuetus of Urusi was martyred by being burned alive at the gate of Urusi known as the Porta Fornitana, the 'Furnos Gate'.[3]
The diocese was nominally restored as a Latin Catholic titular bishopric in 1914 under the name Furnos Majus (or Maius), which was changed to Furni Majus in 1925, Furnos Maior (or Major) in 1929, Fornos Major in 1933, ultimately Furnos Maior again in 1971.
It has had the following incumbents, so far of the Episcopal (lowest) rank:
It was nominally revived as a titular bishopric in 1933 and has had the following incumbents, mostly of the fitting Episcopal (lowest) rank, usually) with an Archiepiscopal exception:
