Denomination Roman Catholic Established 5th Century Area 5,643 km² Cathedral Gap Cathedral | Rite Roman Rite Pope Francis Country France Metropolitan archbishop Georges Pontier | |
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Population
- Total
- Catholics (as of 2013)
141,500
121,300 (85.7%) Ecclesiastical province Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Marseille | ||
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Gap and Embrun (Latin: Dioecesis Vapincensis et Ebrodunensis; French: Diocèse de Gap et d'Embrun) is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The episcopal see is Gap Cathedral, in the city of Gap, in the department of Hautes Alpes. The diocese is suffragan to the archdiocese of Marseille.
The current titular is Jean-Michel di Falco.
History
Ancient traditions in liturgical books, of which at least one dates from the fourteenth century, state that the first Bishop of Gap was St. Demetrius, disciple of the Apostles and martyrs. Victor de Buck in the Acta Sanctorum (October, XI) finds nothing inadmissible in these traditions, while Canon Albanès defends them against M. Roman. Albanès names as bishops of Gap the martyr St. Tigris (fourth century), then St. Remedius (394-419), whom Louis Duchesne makes a Bishop of Antibes and who was involved in the struggle between Pope Zosimus and Bishop Proculus of Marseilles, finally St. Constantinus, about 439. According to Duchesne the first historically known bishop is Constantinus, present at the Council of Epaone in 517. The church of Gap had, among other bishops, St. Aregius (or St. Arey, 579-610?), who established at Gap a celebrated literary school and was held in great esteem by St. Gregory the Great; also St. Arnoude (1065–1078), a monk of Trinité de Vendôme, named bishop by Pope Alexander II to replace the simoniac Ripert, and who became the patron of the episcopal city.
Suppressed by the Concordat of 1801 and then united to the Diocese of Digne, this diocese was re-established in 1822 comprising, besides the ancient diocese of Gap, a large part of the ancient Archdiocese of Embrun. The name of this last metropolitan see, however, had been absorbed in the title of the Archbishop of Aix-en-Provence and Arles until 2007. In 2008, the title was reattached to the Diocese of Gap by papal decree of Pope Benedict XVI.