2014Diocese of Funchal – 500 years (1) - First Day Cover MS

The most extensive bishopric known to exist is the Diocese of Funchal, if we consider its origins […]. When it was granted diocesan status, in 1514, under the jurisdiction of the vicar of Tomar, the territory included all lands discovered or conquered so far, which had been donated to the Military Order of Christ by Prince Henrique and King Duarte, urged by the former», so wrote Madeira-born Henrique Henriques de Noronha in 1722, in his Secular and Ecclesiastical Memoirs for the Recording of the History of the Diocese of Funchal on the Madeira Island, Formerly Primate of All Conquests, Distributed According to a System Devised by the Royal Academy of Portuguese History.