BAIONA, DIOCESI of. — In south-western France, in the department of the Basses-Pyrénées, suffragan of Auch. Known under the name of Lapurdum, as the residence of a tribune of the cohort of
Novempopulania or Aquitania III, it was evangelized in ancient times. No bishop of this diocese, formed at the expense of that of Dax and of Spanish territory (perhaps as early as the eighth century), is known before the eleventh century. The regular episcopal list begins in 1106, with Raimondo, episcopus Lapurdensis, who was the first subsequently to assume the title episcopus Baionensis, from the name of B., which would henceforth be reserved for the episcopal city. Originally, it seems that, following Charlemagne’s conquests in Spain, part of the dioceses of Navarra and Guipúzcoa was united to the diocese of B. In 1566, Pius V united the parishes located in Spanish territory with the dioceses of Pamplona and Calahorra; some others, but only in 1862, were united with that of Vitoria.
The Napoleonic Concordat radically altered the boundaries of this diocese by adding to the department of the Basses-Pyrénées the territories of the dioceses of Landes and Hautes-Pyrénées. The present diocese comprises the entirety of the former dioceses of B. and Oloron, nearly the whole of the diocese of Lescar, and part of the dioceses of Aite, Tarbes, and Dax. Since 1909, the bishop of B. has also borne the title of bishop of Lescar and Oloron.
The diocese has 415,797 inhabitants, almost all Catholic, and is divided into 510 parishes, with 837 secular priests and 137 religious priests (1948). The cathedral, dedicated to the Most Blessed Virgin, is in the Gothic style; begun in the twelfth century, it was completed in the sixteenth century. — Vedi Tav. XLIV.
The religious institutions of these Basque and Béarnese provinces, which had begun in 1068 with the foundation of the Benedictine abbey of S. Stefano di B., followed in 1215 by the Dominicans and soon thereafter by the Franciscans and other communities of religious men and women, increased after the French Revolution through the establishment of many notable additional religious institutions, works, and foundations.