Diocese of Autun

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The bishopric of Autun comprises the entire Department of Saone et Loire in France.

It was suffragan to the Archdiocese of Lyon under the old regime. The bishopric of Chalon-sur-Saône (since Roman times) and (early medieval) bishopric of Mâcon, also suffragans of Lyon, were united to Autun after the French Revolution, and it then was shortly suffragan to the Archbishop of Besançon in 1802, but since 1822 again to Lyon.

Christian teaching reached Autun at a very early period, as we know from the famous funeral inscription, in Greek, of a certain Pectorius inscription of Pectorius which dates from the third century. It was found in 1839 in the cemetery of St. Peter l'Estrier at Autun and bears testimony to the antiquity and efficacy of baptism and the sacramental words of the Holy Eucharist. Local recensions of the "Passion" of St. Symphorianus of Autun exhibit St. Polycarp on the eve of the persecution of Septimius Severus, assigning to St. Irenaeus two priests and a deacon (Saints Benignus, Andochius and Thyrsus), all three of whom depart for Autun. St. Benignus goes on to Langres, while the others remain at Autun. According to this legendary cycle, which dates from about the first half of the sixth century it was not then believed at Autun that the city was an episcopal see in the time of St. Irenaeus (c. 140-211). St. Amator, whom Autun tradition designates as its first bishop, probably occupied the see about 250.

The first bishop known to history is Saint Reticius, an ecclesiastical writer, and contemporary of the Emperor Constantine I (306-337). The Bishop of Autun enjoys the right of wearing the (normally archiepiscopal) pallium, in virtue of a privilege accorded to the see in 599 by pope St. Gregory the Great (590-604).

During the Merovingian era it was a politically important see. Two Bishops of Autun figured prominently in political affairs: St. Syagrius of Autun, bishop during the second half of the 6th century, a contemporary of St. Germanus, bishop of Paris, who was a native of Autun, and Leodegar (St. Léger), bishop from 663 to 680, who came into conflict with Ebroin and put to death by order of Theoderic III. The Abbaye de St. Martin was founded in 602 by Queen Brunhilda of Austrasia, and it was there that her remains were interred - the deposed monarch having been repeatedy racked for three days, torn apart by four horses, and then burnt on a pyre. When the abbey was destroyed in 1793, Brunhilda's sarcophagus was removed, and it is now in the Musée Lapidaire in Avignon.

Much later, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the future diplomat, was Bishop of Autun from 1788 to 1790, when he resigned.

The bishop appointed in 1882 was Cardinal Perraud (d. 1906), member of the French Academy.

In the Diocese of Autun are yet to be seen the ruins of the Benedictine Abbey of Tournus and the great Abbey of Cluny, to which 2,000 monasteries were subject, and which gave to the Church the great pope Gregory VII (1073-85). Gelasius II (1118-19) died at Cluny, and there also was held the conclave that elected Calixtus II (1119-24).

The devotion to the Sacred Heart originated in the Visitation Convent at Paray-le-Monial, founded in 1644, and now the object of frequent pilgrimages.

At the end of 1905, the diocese of Autun had 618,227 inhabitants, 65 parishes, 458 succursal, or auxiliary, churches and 68 vicariates.

[edit] Councils of Autun

The first council, held in 663 or 670, for the purpose of regulating the discipline of the Benedictine monasteries, ordered all ecclesiastics to learn by heart the Apostles Creed and the Athanasian Creed, and this seems to be the earliest mention of the latter in France. Cardinal Pitra says in his "Histoire de St. Léger" that this canon may have been directed against Monothelitism, then seeking entrance into the Gallican churches, but condemned beforehand in the latter of these creeds. The Rule of St. Benedict was also prescribed as the normal monastic code.

In the Council of 1065, Saint Hugues, Abbot of Cluny, accomplished the reconciliation of Robert, Duke of Burgundy, with the Bishop of Autun.

In 1077 Hugues, Bishop of Dié, held a council at Autun, by order of pope St. Gregory VII; it deposed Manasses, Archbishop of Reims, for simony and usurpation of the see, and reproved other bishops for absence from the council.

In 1094 Hugues, Archbishop of Lyon, and thirty-three other bishops renewed at Autun the excommunication of Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, the Antipope Guibert and their partisans, also that of King Philip of France, guilty of bigamy. Simony, ecclesiastical disorders and monastic usurpations provoked other decrees, only one of which is extant, forbidding the monks to induce the canons to enter monasteries.