Denomination Roman Catholic Patron saint Notre-Dame de Buglose Cathedral Aire Cathedral | Area 9,364 km² Bishop Hervé Gaschignard Metropolitan archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard | |
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Population- Total- Catholics (as of 2012)377,381264,000 (70%) Established Name Changed: 3 June 1857 Co-cathedral Cathedral of Nôtre Dame in Dax Ecclesiastical province Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bordeaux | ||
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Aire and Dax (Latin: Dioecesis Adurensis et Aquae Augustae; French: Diocèse d'Aire et Dax) is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic church in France. The diocese comprises the department of Landes, in the Region of Gascony in Aquitaine.
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It was a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Auch under the old regime, but was not re-established until 1822, when it was again made a suffragan of the re-established Archdiocese of Auch, and was assigned the territory of the former Diocese of Aire and Diocese of Acqs (Dax). It is now a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Bordeaux.
It has been known since 1857 as the Diocese of Aire and Dax.
It is a co-cathedral diocese, with episcopal seats in the Cathedral St-Jean-Baptiste d' Aire and in Nôtre Dame de Dax.
History
The first reference to a bishop of Aire, on the river Adour, in history is to Marcellus, represented at the Council of Agde, 506. Aire was also the home of St. Philibert; it numbered among its bishops during the second half of the sixteenth century François de Foix, Count of Candale, an illustrious mathematician, who translated Euclid and founded a chair of mathematics at the University of Bordeaux, though he never visited his diocese.
In 1572, on the death of Bishop Christophe de Candale, the Capitular Vicar of Aire submitted a status report (pouillé) to King Charles IX, providing a picture of the diocese at that time. There were two Archdeacons, that of Marsan and that of Chalosse. In addition to the two archdeacons, the Cathedral Chapter was composed of ten Canons and seven Prebendaries, two semi-Prebendaries, the Master of the Children of the Choir, and the Basse-Contre. The Statutes of the Chapter were confirmed by Bishop Tristan d'Aure in 1459 or 1460.
Religious establishments included:
The hamlet believed to be the birthplace of St. Vincent de Paul is within the limits of the present Diocese of Aire, though in his lifetime it was part of the diocese of Dax and had nothing to do with Aire. In the Gallo-Roman crypt of Mas d'Aire is preserved in a sarcophagus the body of St. Quitteria, daughter of a governor of Gallicia, and martyred, perhaps under Commodus, for her resolution to remain a virgin.
The city of Saint-Sever, in the Diocese of Aire. owes its origin to an ancient Benedictine abbey, built in the tenth century by a Duke of Gascony as an act of thanksgiving for a victory over the Northmen, and whose church was dedicated to St. Severus. The Gothic church of Mimizan is the only survival of a Benedictine abbey. The church of Carcarés, dating from the year 810, is one of the oldest in France.