ARRAS, DIOCESE of. — This bishopric of northern France, suffragan to Cambrai, is bounded by the English Channel to the north and by the dioceses of Cambrai, Lille, and Amiens to the south, east, and west, respectively. Its extensive territory coincides with the département of Pas-de-Calais, which has an area of 6762 sq. km. and comprises 900 communes. Catholics number 1,030,000 out of a population of 1,168,545; there are 825 parishes, 1142 diocesan priests, and 84 religious priests.
A., ancient Nemetocum, capital of one of the twelve regions of Gallia Belgica, the Nemetocena of Julius Caesar, later called Atrebatum after the people who inhabited it, does not appear to have known the Gospel during Roman domination. It was s. Remigius, bishop of Reims, who in 496 sent there as pastor Clovis’s catechist, s. Vedastus. His successor Vedulfus, during the second half of the 6th century, transferred the episcopal residence to Cambrai, where it remained until 1093, when Urban II restored it to A., appointing as bishop Lambert of Guines, whom he himself consecrated. The diocese remained suffragan to Reims until 1559, when Paul IV subordinated it to the archdiocese of Cambrai, which he raised to metropolitan status. Its extent was still very limited; but the Napoleonic Concordat of 1801, by assigning it the boundaries of the département of Pas-de-Calais, which it still retains, greatly enlarged its territory through the suppressed dioceses of Boulogne and St-Omer, whose title the bishop of A. has borne ever since.
In the course of its history, A. experienced the most diverse political vicissitudes, passing from the Vandals and the Huns to the Normans, then to the counts of Flanders, afterward to the kings of England, and subsequently to France in 1482, and definitively in 1659, after having been under Spanish rule in the 16th century. It was devastated several times and succeeded in resisting Protestant infiltration from the north. Among the bishops of A. should be remembered Cardinal de Granvelle (1538–61), more a statesman than a bishop, governor of the Netherlands and minister of Philip II; Guido of Rochechouart, who founded the seminary in 1677 and occupied the see for 54 years; and, more recently, Pier Luigi Parisis (1851–66). Among the monastic foundations of the diocese, the Benedictine abbey of S. Vedastus is famous; it was founded in 658 by s. Autbertus and suppressed by the French Revolution. The abbey church was used as the cathedral from 1802 until 1915, when it was destroyed by bombardment.
In 1097 Lamberto, bishop of A., confirmed the privileges granted by his predecessors to the abbot and monks of Mont-St-Eloi and freed the monastery of Arrouaise from every jurisdiction other than his own.
