Area 7,644 km (2,951 sq mi) | Parishes 69 | |
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Population- Total- Catholics (as of 2012)669,300570,000 (85.2%) | ||
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bayonne, Lescar, and Oloron (Latin: Dioecesis Baionensis, Lascurrensis et Oloronensis; French: Diocèse de Bayonne, Lescar et Oloron; Basque: Baionako, Leskarreko eta Oloroeko elizbarrutia) is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic church in France. The diocese comprises the Department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques, in the Region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
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Reorganized in 1802, it included, besides certain parishes of the Diocese of Dax and Tarbes, the Diocese of Oloron and Lescar. It was suffragan to the Archiepiscopal See of Toulouse from 1802 to 1822, thereafter to the Archiepiscopal See of Auch. Since the reorganization of the ecclesiastical structure of the Church in France by Pope John Paul II on 8 December 2002, the diocese of Bayonne-Lescar-Oloron has been suffragan to the Archbishop of Bordeaux.
In World War I, 560 priests and seminarians were mobilized from the diocese of Bayonne, 50 of whom died. In 1921 there were 40 Deaneries and 507 parishes. The diocese is now divided into 69 'new parishes'. There is currently one priest for every 1,417 Catholics.
History
Local tradition maintains that St. Leo, the martyr, with whose memory is associated a miraculous fountain, was the first Bishop of Bayonne; but Leo was a priest of the third quarter of the ninth century, and his hagiographies insist that he had been Archbishop of Rouen before travelling to Bayonne. As Honoré Fisquet puts it succinctly, these lives have nothing really authentic in them.
No bishop is historically known prior to the sixth century, although some think that Bayonne, designated as civitas in the Treaty of Andelot (587), must have had a bishop at that time, whilst others couple the foundation of the See of Bayonne with the establishment of the Kingdom of Aquitaine (778). The southern boundary of the see, from about this period, was marked by a series of crosses high in the Pyrenees, of which the southernmost and most famous was Charles's Cross.
Until 1566, the Diocese of Bayonne included much Spanish territory, i.e. the four Archpresbyteries of Baztan, Lerin, Bortziria in Navarre, and Hondarribia in Guipuzcoa, a remnant of Charlemagne's conquests beyond the Pyrenees.