BELLEY, Diocese of. - In the department of the Ain, between the Rhône and Saône rivers. It has an area of 5,825 sq. km.; it numbers 443 parishes, 718 diocesan priests and 421 regulars, 290,000 Catholics out of 306,864 inhabitants (1948). B. is the ancient Vicus Bellicensis (CIL, XII, 2500). Duchesne regards the diocese of B. as the continuation, with reduced territory and transfer of see, of the diocese of Nyon, originally in the civitas Equestrium, in order to escape the raids of the Alemanni.
According to others, B. would have been founded either by Vienne, or by Besançon, or by Lyon.
In the library of the cathedral of Besançon there exists a threefold catalogue of the bishops of B.; the first two copies are of the 11th century, the third of the 13th century. If the bishop Vincent, present at the Council of Paris of 552, is the same person as he who became bishop of B. in 570, it means that the city was already subject to the Merovingians. Other bishops were Felix, signatory at the Council of Mâcon of 585, Aquilinus who was at the Council of Paris of 614, and Florentinus who signed at the Council of Chalon-sur-Saône in 650.
It later passed to the Carolingians and was subsequently included in the kingdom of Burgundy. For some years in the 16th century Bourg (v.) formed a separate diocese with its dependencies. The Constituent Assembly made B. a departmental diocese subject to Lyon. The concordat of 1801 suppressed it and it was re-established in 1822, as a suffragan of Besançon.
The Cathedral, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, patron of the diocese, is a construction of the 12th century with alterations of the 15th century.
A center of frequent pilgrimages is at Ars, the tomb of St. John Mary Vianney (v.).
Abbeys. The Cistercian one of St. Sulpice was founded by Amadeus III, count of Savoy, in 1130, with a women's monastery founded at Bons by his daughter Margaret of Savoy dependent on it. The charterhouse of Pierre-Châtel, founded by Amadeus VI of Savoy in 1383; whose church is intimately connected with the Order of the Most Holy Annunciation (v.). Also noteworthy are the abbey of St-Rambert and the charterhouse of Sélignac.