Ecclesiastical province Marseille Rite Roman Rite Patron saint St. Lazarus of Bethany Phone +33 4 91 52 38 23 Country France | Denomination Roman Catholic Established 1st Century Area 650 km² Cathedral Marseille Cathedral Metropolitan archbishop Georges Pontier | |
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Population
- Total
- Catholics (as of 2013)
1,048,521
715,000 (68.2%) Address 14 Place du Colonel Edon, 13007 Marseille, France Hours Open today · 12PM–12AMTuesday12PM–12AMWednesday12PM–12AMThursday12PM–12AMFriday12PM–12AMSaturday12PM–12AMSunday12PM–12AMMonday12PM–12AMSuggest an edit Similar Abbaye Saint‑Victor, Basilique Notre‑Da de la Gar, Paroisse Saint‑Mic Archange, Église Saint‑Lau, Sacre Cœur Basilica Profiles | ||
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Marseille (Latin: Archidioecesis Massiliensis; French: Archidiocèse de Marseille) is a metropolitan archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic church in France. The Archepiscopal see is in the city of Marseille, and the diocese comprises the arrondissement of Marseille, a subdivision of the department of Bouches-du-Rhône in the Region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.
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According to local myth, the Church of Marseille was erected in the 1st century, by St. Lazarus, the young man mentioned in the Gospels who had been raised from the dead by Jesus Christ himself. His family migrated to Provence at some point after the Resurrection.
The diocese of Marseille was abolished during the French Revolution, under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790). Its territory was subsumed into the new diocese, called the 'Bouches-du-Rhone', which was part of the Metropolitanate called the 'Metropole des Côtes de la Méditerranée (which included ten new 'departements'). The electors of 'Bouches-du-Rhone' met at Aix beginning on 19 February 1791, and on 23 February elected Abbé Charles Benoît Roux, curé of Eyragues near Arles. He was consecrated in Paris by Constitutional Bishops Gobel, Miroudot and Gouttes. He very much enjoyed the social life of Marseille, but after the execution of Louis XVI on 21 January 1793, Roux joined the counter-revolutionaries. When Marseille was occupied by troops of the Convention, he fled to Aix. He was arrested and imprisoned on 20 September; he was taken to Marseille, where he faced a tribunal of the Revolution which condemned him to death. He was executed on 5 April 1794.
The diocese was raised to the level of an Archdiocese on 31 January 1948 by Pope Pius XII. The suffragans of the archdiocese are: the Archdiocese of Aix, the Diocese of Ajaccio, the Archdiocese of Avignon, the Diocese of Digne, the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon, the Diocese of Gap, and the Diocese of Nice.