The diocese of Auxerre (Latin: dioecesis Antissiodorensis) is a former French Roman Catholic diocese. Its historical episcopal see was in the city of Auxerre in Burgundy, now part of eastern France. Currently the non-metropolitan Archbishop of Sens, ordinary of the diocese of Sens and Auxerre, resides in Auxerre.
Ecclesiastical history
The Gesta pontificum Autissiodorensium,[a] written about 875 by the canons Rainogala and Alagus, and later continued up to 1278, gives a list of bishops of Auxerre. Louis Duchesne regards the list as mostly accurate, but very arbitrary in its dates prior to the 7th century. Auxerre is remarkable among French churches for the number of its bishops who have come to be regarded as saints.[1][2][3][4]
Bishops of the original Gesta
St. Peregrinus (Pélérin 'pilgrim') was the founder of the See of Auxerre; according to the legend, he was sent by Pope Sixtus II and was martyred under Emperor Diocletian in 303 or 304.[4]
St. Amator (d. 418), who had been ordained deacon and tonsured by St. Helladius and who thus affords the earliest example of ecclesiastical tonsure mentioned in the religious history of France
Guillaume de Toucy (1167–1181), the first French bishop who went to Rome to acknowledge the authority of Pope Alexander III.
Hugues de Noyers (1183–1206), known as the "hammer of heretics" for the vigour with which he sought out in his diocese the sects of the Albigenses and the "Caputiés" (mainly in Sens)
Guillaume de Seignelay (1207–1220), who took part in the war against the Albigenses and in 1230 became the bishop of Paris
Charles de Caylus (1704–1754), who made his diocese a centre of Jansenism and whose published works in four volumes were condemned by Rome in 1754.
On November 29, 1801, the diocese of Auxerre was suppressed. On October 7, 1817, it was restored, but in 1821 it was suppressed again. On June 3, 1823, it was united once more to the diocese of Sens. The newly united diocese soon became an archdiocese, but after many years, in 2006, which in turn lost its Metropolitan status in 2006 and became a suffragan see of the Ecclesiastical Province of the Dijon.
The Cathedral of Auxerre, completed in 1178, contains numerous sculptures in the Byzantine style.[4]
^ abcdef One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Goyau, Pierre-Louis-Théophile-Georges (1912). "Sens". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 13. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
