Diocese of Saint-Dié
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The Diocese of Saint-Dié (Lat: Dioecesis Sancti Deodatiis), is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The Diocese encompasses the department of the Vosges. The bishop is seated at Saint-Dié Cathedral in the town of Saint-Dié-des-Vosges. The diocese is currently a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Besancon. The current bishop is Jean-Paul Mary Mathieu, who was appointed in December of 2005.
The diocese was erected in 1777, but suppressed by the Holy See in accordance with the Napoleonic Concordat of 1801, and later restored in name by the Concordat of 1817, and in fact by a Papal bull of 6 October 1822, and a royal ordinance of 13 January 1823, as a suffragan of Besançon. According to a principle sanctioned by that Concordat, the diocesan boundaries were realigned, however, to follow those of the civil department of the Vosges, which since 1801 had formed part of the diocese of Nancy. The diocese established in the area by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790 had indeed been of Vosges, which was sometimes referred to at that period as the diocese of Saint-Dié, after its episcopal seat. The Franco-German Treaty of Frankfurt (1871) cut eighteen communes from the department of the Vosges, and added them to the Diocese of Strasbourg.
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[edit] History
The Diocese of Saint-Dié originated in the celebrated abbey of that name. Saint Deodatus (Dié) (b. towards the close of the sixth century; d. 679) came from the Nivernais, or, according to some authorities, from Ireland. Attracted by the reputation of Saint Columbanus he withdrew to the Vosges, sojourning at Romont, and Arentelle, and made the acquaintance of Saints Arbogast and Florentius. For some time he was a solitary at Wibra, doubtless the present Katzenthal in Alsace, but being persecuted by the inhabitants, he went to the Vosges and founded a monastery, which he named Galilée on lands (called "Juncturae") given to him by Childeric II. The town of Saint-Dié-des-Vosges now stands on this site.
At the same time, Leudin Bodo, Bishop of Toul, founded to the north of Galilée the monastery of Bonmoutier and to the south that of Etival; Saint Gondelbert, perhaps after resigning the Archbishopric of Sens, had just founded Senones Abbey to the east. These four monasteries formed, by their geographical position the four extremities of a cross. Later, Saint Hidulphus, Bishop of Trier (d 707), erected between them at the intersection of the two arms of the cross, the monastery of Moyenmoutier. Villigod and Martin (disciples of Saint Dié), Abbot Spinulus (Spin), John the priest, and the deacon Benignus (disciples of Saint Hidulphus) are honoured as saints.
In the 10th century the Abbey of Saint-Dié grew lax, and Frederick I, Duke of Lorraine, expelled the Benedictines, replacing them by the Canons Regular of St. Augustine. Pope Gregory V, in 996, agreed to the change and decided that the grand prévôt, the principal dignitary of the abbey, should depend directly upon the Holy See.
During the sixteenth century, profiting by the long vacancy of the see of Toul, the abbots of the several monasteries in the Vosges, without actually declaring themselves independent of the diocese of Toul, claimed to exercise a quasi-episcopal jurisdiction as to the origin of which, however, they were not agreed; in the eighteenth century they pretended to be nullius dioceseos. In 1718, Thiard de Bissy, Bishop of Toul, requested the election of a see at Saint-Dié. Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, was in favour of this step, but the King of France opposed it; the Holy See refrained for the time from action. In 1777 a Papal Bull of Pius VI erected the abbey of Saint-Dié into an episcopal see, and cut off from the Diocese of Toul the new Diocese of Saint-Dié, which, until the end of the ancien régime, was a suffragan of Trier. Louis Caverot, who died as Cardinal Archbishop of Lyon, was Bishop of Saint-Dié from 1849 to 1876.
[edit] Other religious houses in the diocese
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For more details on this topic, see Remiremont Abbey.
[edit] Saints and religious of the diocese
Besides the saints mentioned above and some others, bishops of Nancy and Toul, the, following are honoured in a special manner in the Diocese of Saint-Dié:
- Saint Sigebert, Merovingian King of Austrasia (630-56)
- Saint Germain, a hermit near Remiremont, a martyr, who died Abbot of Grandval, near Basle (618-70)
- Saint Hunna, a penitent at Saint-Dié (d. about 672)
- Saint Dagobert, another King of Austrasia, slain by his servant Grimoald in 679 and honoured as a martyr
- Saint Modesta, a nun at Remiremont, afterwards foundress and abbess of the monastery of Horren at Trier (seventh century)
- Saint Simeon, Bishop of Metz]] (eighth century), whose relics are preserved at Senones
- Saint Goéry, Bishop of Metz (d. about 642), whose relics are preserved at Epinal and who is the patron of the butchers of the town
- Saint William and Saint Achery, hermits near Ste. Marie aux Mines
- Richardis (wife of Charles the Fat), who died as Abbess of Andlau in Alsace
- Blessed Joan of Arc, b. at Domrémy in the diocese
- Saint Pierre Fourier (b. at Méricourt, 1565; d. 1640), curé of Mattaincourt, who founded the Order of Notre-Dame
- Venerable Mére Alix le Clerc (b. at Remiremont, 1576; d. 1622)
Elizabeth de Ranfaing (born at Remiremont, 1592; died 1649) founded in the Diocese of Toul the congregation of Our Lady of Refuge; Catherine de Bar (b. at Saint-Dié, 1614; d. 1698), known as Mére Mechtilde of the Blessed Sacrament, at first an Annunciade nun and then a Benedictine, founded at Paris, in 1654, the Order of the Benedictines of the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Elizabeth Brem (1609-68, known as Mother Benedict of the Passion), a Benedictine nun at Rambervillers, established in that monastery the Institute of the Perpetual Adoration. The remains of Brother Joseph Formet (1724-84, known as the hermit of Ventron), are the object of a pilgrimage. Venerable Jean Martin Moye (1730-93), founder in Lorraine of the Congrégation de la Providence for the instruction of young girls and apostle of Su-Tchuen, was director for a brief period of the seminary of Saint-Dié, and established at Essegney, in the diocese, one of the first novitiates of the Soeurs de la Providence (hospitallers and teachers), whose mother-house at Portieux ruled over a large number of houses before the Law of 1901. Grandclaude, a village teacher who was sent to the Roman College in 1857 by Bishop Caverot, contributed, when a professor in the grand seminaire of Saint-Dié, to the revival of canon law studies in France.
[edit] Ordinaries
- Jacques-Alexis Jacquemin † (13 Aug 1823 Appointed - Jan 1830 Retired)
- Jacques-Marie-Antoine-Célestin du Pont † (9 May 1830 Appointed - 1 May 1835 Appointed, Archbishop of Avignon)
- Jean-Joseph-Marie-Eugène de Jerphanion † (1 May 1835 Appointed - 15 Jul 1842 Appointed, Archbishop of Albi)
- Jean-Nicaise Gros † (15 Jul 1842 Appointed - 3 Mar 1844 Appointed, Bishop of Versailles)
- Daniel-Victor Manglard † (21 Apr 1844 Appointed - 17 Feb 1849 Died)
- Louis-Marie-Joseph-Eusèbe Caverot † (16 Mar 1849 Appointed - 20 Apr 1876 Appointed, Archbishop of Lyon (-Vienne))
- Albert-Marie-Camille de Briey † (20 Apr 1876 Appointed - 10 Nov 1888 Died)
- Etienne-Marie-Alphonse Sonnois † (21 Dec 1889 Appointed - 26 Nov 1892 Appointed, Archbishop of Cambrai)
- Alphonse-Gabriel-Pierre Foucault † (3 Jan 1893 Appointed - 28 May 1930 Died)
- Louis-Augustin Marmottin † (2 Aug 1930 Appointed - 21 Aug 1940 Appointed, Archbishop of Reims)
- Emile-Arsène Blanchet † (6 Oct 1940 Appointed - 10 Oct 1946 Resigned)
- Henri-René-Adrien Brault † (29 Sep 1947 Appointed - 11 Jul 1964 Died)
- Jean-Félix-Albert-Marie Vilnet (24 Sep 1964 Appointed - 13 Aug 1983 Appointed, Bishop of Lille)
- Paul-Marie Joseph André Guillaume (29 Oct 1984 Appointed - 14 Dec 2005 Retired)
- Jean-Paul Mary Mathieu (14 Dec 2005 Appointed - )
[edit] Pilgrimages of the diocese
The principal pilgrimages of the diocese are: Notre-Dame de Saint-Dié, at Saint-Dié, at the place where Saint Dié erected his first sanctuary; Notre-Dame du Trésor, at Remiremont; Notre-Dame de Consolation, at Epinal; Notre-Dame de la Brosse, at Bains; Notre-Dame de Bermont, near Domrémy, the sanctuary at which Joan of Arc prayed; and the tomb of Saint Peter Fourier at Mattaincourt.
[edit] Religious institutions in the diocese up to 1905
There were in the diocese before the application of the Law of 1901 against the congregations: Augustianian Canons of Lateran; Clerks Regular of Our Saviour; Eudistes; Franciscans, Fathers of the Holy Ghost and the Holy Heart of Mary and various teaching orders of brothers. Among the congregations of nuns founded in the diocese may be mentioned besides the Sisters of Providence, the Soeurs du Pauvre Enfant Jésus (also known as the Soeurs de la bienfaisance chrétienne), teachers and hospitallers, founded in 1854 at Chemoy l'Orgueilleux; the mother-house was transferred to Remiremont.
At the close of the nineteenth century the religious congregations in the diocese directed 7 créchés, 55 day nurseries, 1 orphanage for boys and girls; 19 girls' orphanages, 13 workshops, 1 house of refuge; 4 houses for the assistance of the poor, 36 hospitals or hospices, 11 houses of nuns devoted to the care of the sick in their own homes and 1 insane asylum. The diocese of Saint-Dié had in 1905 (at the time of the rupture of the Concordat), 421,104 inhabitants in 32 parishes, 354 succursal parishes and 49 vicariates supported by the State.
This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
