- Source: Roman Catholic Diocese of Verdun
The Diocese of Verdun (Latin: Dioecesis Virodunensis; French: Diocèse de Verdun) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in France. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Besançon. The Diocese of Verdun corresponds to the département of Meuse in the région of Lorraine. The diocese is subdivided into 577 parishes.
History
The beginnings of Christianity in Verdun is associated with the name Sanctinus. One legend, recorded by Bertarius of Verdun (early 10th century), states that Saint Denis (mid-3rd cent.) sent Sanctinus, Bishop of Meaux, and the priest Antoninus to Rome to Pope Clement (c. 91–c. 101) with a report on their sufferings, and that their journey passed trhough Verdun, both going and returning, where they preached Christianity. This legend, like many similar ones referring to a diocese's earliest connection with the Apostle Peter or one of his disciples, hardly needs refutation.
Bertarius also reports that he read in a "Life of Saint Servatius the bishop" that Sanctinus, Clavorum episcopus was present at the Council of Cologne (Colonia Agrippinensis), summoned to depose its archbishop. It has been argued that there was no such council.
In another tradition, the city was first evangelized around 332 by St Sanctinus, Bishop of Meaux, who became the first bishop. Sanctinus erected the first Christian oratory dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul.
The diocese dates to the 4th century.
The first bishop known to history is St. Polychronius (Pulchrone) who lived in the fifth century and was a relative and disciple of St. Lupus de Troyes. "Other noteworthy bishops are: Vitonus (Vanne) (502–529); St. Agericus (Airy) (554–591), friend of St. Gregory of Tours and of Fortunatus; Paulus of Verdun (630–648), formerly Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of Tholey in the Diocese of Trier; and Madalvaeus (Mauve) (753–776)."
In 916 or 917, the 37th year of Bishop Dado, the cathedral suffered a major fire, and nearly all the ancient records of the church were destroyed, according to the chronicler Bertarius of Verdun.
= French diocese
=The three bishoprics (Metz, Toul, and Verdun) had been under control of the French since 1552, but the dioceses resisted, and it was not until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 that their acquisition was formally recognized. In the reign of King Louis XIV, in 1664, the kings of France were granted the right to nominate the bishop when a vacancy occurred. This concession did not extend to any other benefice in the dioceses. It was not until 1668 that Clement IX removed the limitation.
From 1624 to 1636, a large bastioned citadel was constructed. following the plans of Jean Errard of Bar-le-Duc, on the site of the Abbey of Saint Vanne. The Church of Saint-Vanne was destroyed in 1832 and its cloister, which had been converted into barracks, was burned in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War.
= French Revolution
=Even before it directed its attention to the Church directly, the National Constituent Assembly attacked the institution of monasticism. On 13 February 1790. it issued a decree which stated that the government would no longer recognize solemn religious vows taken by either men or women. In consequence, Orders and Congregations which lived under a Rule were suppressed in France. Members of either sex were free to leave their monasteries or convents if they wished, and could claim an appropriate pension by applying to the local municipal authority.
The Assembly ordered the replacement of political subdivisions of the ancien régime with subdivisions called "departments", to be characterized by a single administrative city in the center of a compact area. The decree was passed on 22 December 1789, the boundaries fixed on 26 February 1790, with the institution to be effective on 4 March 1790. A new department was created called "Meuse," which comprised the three bishoprics and the district of Bar-le-Duc (Barrois), and Verdun was fixed as its administrative center. The National Constituent Assembly then, on 6 February 1790, instructed its ecclesiastical committee to prepare a plan for the reorganization of the clergy. At the end of May, its work was presented as a draft Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which, after vigorous debate, was approved on 12 July 1790. There was to be one diocese in each department, requiring the suppression of approximately fifty dioceses. The former diocese of Verdun was assigned to the "Metropole du Nord-Est", with its metropolitan seated in Reims, by decree of 12 July 1790.
In the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the National Constituent Assembly also abolished cathedral chapters, canonicates, prebends, chapters and dignities of collegiate churches, chapters of both secular and regular clergy of both sexes, and abbeys and priories whether existing under a Rule or in commendam.
On 13 January 1791, the municipal officials of Verdun presented Bishop Henri-Louis Rene Desnos a copy of the decree of 27 November 1790, demanding an oath of allegiance to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The bishop submitted his formal refusal on 21 January, and left the city. On 5 February, he issued a pastoral letter, signed at Trier. The episcopal chair of Verdun was declared vacant, and on 21 February 1791, the electors of the department of Meuse met to elect a Constitutional Bishop.
They elected Jean-Baptiste Aubry, former teacher of humanities and philosophy at the Collège de Bar, and parish priest of Véel. He was consecrated a bishop in Paris at the Oratory church by Jean-Pierre Saurine, assisted by Robert-Thomas Lindet and François-Xavier Laurent, in a ceremony that was both blasphemous and schismatic. He returned to Verdun on 19 March. In 1792, Verdun was occupied by a Prussian army on 2 September 1792, and the constitutional clergy were compelled to withdraw, though they returned when the Prussians withdrew after six weeks. Bishop Aubry celebrated a Te Deum in the cathedral on 23 October 1792. Under the Terror, religion was abolished, the Constitutional Church dispersed, and Aubry returned to his birthplace, Saint-Aubin, where he worked in a mill and was mayor of the commune. He returned to his cathedral in 1797.
= Restoration
=Until 1801 Verdun was, in the eyes of the Papacy, part of the ecclesiastical province of the Archbishop of Trier. On 29 November 1801, implementing the terms of the concordat of 1801 between the French Consulate, headed by First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, and Pope Pius VII, the bishopric of Verdun (Meuse) and all the other dioceses were suppressed. This removed all the contaminations and novelties introduced by the Constitutiona Church. The pope then recreated the French ecclesiastical order, with the bull "Qui Christi Domini," respecting in most ways the changes introduced during the Revolution, including the reduction in the number of archdioceses and dioceses. Verdun, however, was not restored, though other diocese in the area became suffragans of the archdiocese of Besancon. and the diocese of Trier lost its metropolitan status. The territory of the former diocese of Verdun was added to the Diocese of Nancy.
The concordat of 27 July 1817, between King Louis XVIII and Pope Pius VII, should have restored the diocese of Verdun by the bull "Commissa divinitus", but the French Parliament refused to ratify the agreement. It was not until 6 October 1822 that a revised version of the papal bull, "Paternae Charitatis" , fortified by an ordonnance of Louis XVIII of 13 January 1823, received the approval of all parties. The diocese of Verdun became a suffragan of the archdiocese of Besancon.
= World War I
=During World War I, 1n February 1916, the German offensive, directed by General Erich von Falkenhayn, surrounded and occcupied Verdun. More than 200 parishes fell under occupation by the German army and communication with the Bishop of Verdun practically cut off. When the city came under bombardment the diocesan administration relocated to Bar-le-Duc and did not return until 1921. The administration of the parishes was confided to Thomas Louis Heylen, Bishop of Namur, who had been appointed vicar apostolic to French territory under German occupation.
In 1917, the French recovered the city. One hundred and fifty-three churches were destroyed and 166 damaged, including the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Verdun, whose towers have never been rebuilt. Of 186 priests who enlisted, 13 were killed, 20 seriously wounded, and 50 taken prisoner. One hundred and sixty citations and diplomas of honor and 120 decorations were awarded to priests of the diocese.
Bishops of Verdun
= Early bishops
== Prince-bishops
=990 to 1300
1300 to 1500
after 1500
1500–1508: Warry de Dommartin
1508–1522: Louis de Lorraine
1523–1544: Jean de Lorraine (1498–1550), brother of predecessor
1544–1547: Nicolas de Mercœur (1524–1577), nephew of predecessor
1548–1575: Nicolas Psaume.
1576–1584: Nicolas Bousmard
1585–1587: Charles de Lorraine
1588–1593: Nicolas Boucher
1593–1610: Eric of Lorraine
1593–1601: Christophe de la Vallée, administrator
1610–1622: Charles de Lorraine,
= Bishops under French rule
=1623–1661 : François de Lorraine
1661–1668 : Sede vacante
1668–1679 : Armand de Monchy d'Hocquincourt
1681–1720 : Hippolyte de Béthune
1721–1754 : Charles-François D'Hallencourt
1754–1769 : Aymar-Fr.-Chrétien-Mi. de Nicolai
1770–1793 : Henri-Louis Rene Desnos
Constitutional Bishops of Meuse
1791–1802 :Jean-Baptiste Aubry
= After the Concordat of 1817 (1823)
=1823–1830: Etienne-Bruno-Marie d'Arbou
1826–1831: François-Joseph de Villeneuve-Esclapon
1832–1836: Placide-Bruno Valayer
1836–1844: Augustin-Jean Le Tourneur
1844–1866: Louis Rossat
1867–1884: Augustin Hacquard
1884–1887: Jean-Natalis-François Gonindard
1887–1901: Jean-Pierre Pagis
1901–1909: Louis-Ernest Dubois
1910–1913: Jean Arturo Chollet
1914–1946: Charles-Marie-André Ginisty
1946–1963: Marie-Paul-Georges Petit
1963–1986: Pierre Francis Lucien Anatole Boillon
1987–1999: Marcel Paul Herriot
= 21st century
=9 March 2000 to September 2014: François Paul Marie Maupu
3 July 2014: Jean-Paul Gabriel Émile Gusching
See also
Prince-Bishopric of Verdun
Verdun Cathedral
References
Books
Gams, Pius Bonifatius (1873). Series episcoporum Ecclesiae catholicae. Ratisbon: Typis et Sumptibus Georgii Josephi Manz. pp. 652–653. (Use with caution; obsolete)
Eubel, Conradus, ed. (1913). Hierarchia catholica (in Latin). Vol. 1 (Tomus I) (second ed.). Munster: Libreria Regensbergiana. p. 527.
Eubel, Conradus, ed. (1914). Hierarchia catholica (in Latin). Vol. 2 (Tomus II) (second ed.). Munster: Libreria Regensbergiana.
Eubel, Conradus, ed. (1923). Hierarchia catholica (in Latin). Vol. 3 (Tomus III) (second ed.). Munster: Libreria Regensbergiana.. Archived.
Gauchat, Patritius (Patrice) (1935). Hierarchia catholica (in Latin). Vol. 4 (IV) (1592-1667). Münster: Libraria Regensbergiana. Retrieved 2016-07-06. p. 219.
Ritzler, Remigius; Sefrin, Pirminus (1952). Hierarchia catholica medii et recentis aevi (in Latin). Vol. 5 (V) (1667-1730). Patavii: Messagero di S. Antonio. Retrieved 2016-07-06.
Ritzler, Remigius; Sefrin, Pirminus (1958). Hierarchia catholica medii et recentis aevi. Vol. 6 (Tomus VI) (1730–1799). Patavii: Messagero di S. Antonio.
Ritzler, Remigius; Sefrin, Pirminus (1968). Hierarchia Catholica medii et recentioris aevi (in Latin). Vol. VII (1800–1846). Monasterii: Libreria Regensburgiana.
Remigius Ritzler; Pirminus Sefrin (1978). Hierarchia catholica Medii et recentioris aevi (in Latin). Vol. VIII (1846–1903). Il Messaggero di S. Antonio.
Pięta, Zenon (2002). Hierarchia catholica medii et recentioris aevi (in Latin). Vol. IX (1903–1922). Padua: Messagero di San Antonio. ISBN 978-88-250-1000-8.
Studies
Clouêt, Louis (1867, 1868, 1870). Histoire de Verdun et du pays verdunois. (in French). Verdun: Ch. Laurent. Volume 1. Volume 2. Volume 3.
Duchesne, Louis (1915). Fastes episcopaux de l'ancienne Gaule. Vol. III: Les provinces du Nord et de l'Est. (in French). Paris: A. Fontemoing, 1915.
Goyau, Georges (1912). "Diocese of Verdun." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 15 January 2023.
Jean, Armand (1891). Les évêques et les archevêques de France depuis 1682 jusqu'a 1801. (in French). Paris: A. Picard, 1891. Pp. 413-415.
Pionnier, Edmond (1906). Essai sur l'histoire de la révolution à Verdun: (1789-1795). (in French). Nancy: A. Crépin-Leblond, 1906.
Rochette, Marc (2005). Les évêques de Verdun: 1823-1946. (in French). Connaissance de la Meuse, 2005.
Roussel, Nicolas (1745, 1863). Histoire ecclésiastique et civile de Verdun, avec le pouillé, la carte du diocèse et le plan de la ville en 1745 ... Édition revue et annotée par une Société d'ecclésiastiques et d'hommes de lettres, etc. (in French). Bar-le-Duc: Contant-Laguerre. Volume 1 (1863). Volume 2 (1864).
Sainte-Marthe, Denis de (1785). Gallia christiana, in provincias ecclesiasticas distributa (in Latin). Vol. Tomus decimus-tertius (13) (second ed.). Paris: Johannes- Baptista Coignard. pp. 150–185, Instrumenta, pp. 1162–1342, "Instrumenta, " pp. 551–584.
External links
Société bibliographique (France) (1907). L'épiscopat français depuis le Concordat jusqu'à la Séparation (1802-1905). Paris: Librairie des Saints-Pères.
Website of the diocese
Catholic hierarchy
CatholiCity – Diocese of Verdun