ARCHDIOCESE OF BESANÇON. — It extends over 11,200 km² across the two departments of Haute-Saône and Doubs. It has 560,000 Catholics out of a population of 587,476; 888 parishes, 925 diocesan priests and 735 regular clergy (1948). Besançon is the ancient *Vesontio*, a strong city and capital of the Sequani, conquered by Julius Caesar; once the region was organized as a Roman province, *Maxima Sequanorum*, Besançon also flourished with schools. It was sacked by the Germans and Vandals in the 5th century, and in the 7th century by the Saracens. It then passed to the Carolingians and formed part of the Franche-Comté until 1674, when it was conquered by Louis XIV.
For the glories of the church of Besançon, an early list of bishops goes back to the time of Bishop St Hugh of Salins (1031–1067), because with him several episcopal catalogues end that were later inserted into liturgical books. Duchesne considers the first part of the list uncertain up to the end of the 6th century. Among the signatories of the false Council of Cologne (346) is a Pancarius *Vesontentium*, perhaps identifiable with Pacatus; more certain is Chelidonius, deposed c. 444 and then reinstated by St Leo the Great; of Silvester, present at the Council of Paris in 573, a fragment of his epitaph reveals that he died after 22 years as bishop. A bishop Ado, attested by a document of 869, is missing from the lists.
Besançon became a metropolitan see and had as its suffragans the other dioceses of the province, namely Aventicum, Augusta Rauracorum, Civitas Equestris, and Vindonissa.
In 1742 the abbey of St-Claude was erected into a diocese with a group of parishes from the Jura territory. The Constituent Assembly made Besançon the metropolitan of the eastern territories. A decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Consistory of 10 July 1874 added the territory of Belfort. Its suffragans are the dioceses of St-Dié, Belley, Nancy, and Verdun.
The patrons of the diocese are the martyrs Ferreolus and Ferrucius, commemorated on 5 September in the *Martyrologium Hieronymianum*, but their *passio* has great affinities with that of St Benignus.
The ancient cathedral of St Stephen was demolished by Vauban (Sébastien Le Prestre, marquis of) to build the fortress (1674). From it comes a mensa of the 5th–6th century for oblations, in the form of a marble disc 1.07 m in diameter with eight semicircular lobes and around it the inscription *hoc signum praestat populis caelestia regna*, while in the centre, enclosed in a circle, is the *Signum Christi* between the letters A and Ω; on the shaft of the P. the Latin cross is grafted; at the foot of the cross stands a lamb, above it a dove. (G. Rohault de Fleury, *La Messe, études archéologiques sur ses monuments*, I, Paris 1883, p. 161, pl. 37).
The present cathedral, dedicated to the Apostle St John, was consecrated in 1148 by Pope Eugenius III; it was damaged by fire in 1213; the grand arches of the nave with historiated capitals survive; it has two terminal apses, in the western one is placed *The Resurrection* by Charles Van Loo. It also contains the Bartolomeo della Porta (v.), *The Virgin and Child with SS Sebastian, Bernard and Anthony and the Offering (Ferry Carondelet, Abbot of Montbenoît)* who is buried there. Other churches of Besançon are Notre-Dame, built over the ancient abbey of St Vincent (11th century), St Peter, St Francis Xavier (1680) modelled on the Gesù in Rome, and La Madeleine with two towers externally, on the right bank of the Doubs. Modern is the great basilica dedicated to the protecting saints Ferreolus and Ferrucius.
The archdiocese possesses a major seminary and four minor seminaries. Among the many abbeys, Luxeuil (v.), are those of Cherlieu, Clairefontaine, Faverney, Lure, Montbenoît, Mont-Sainte-Marie, and Rosières.
Among the archbishops of Besançon were the cardinals: Giovanni d’Albigny, Guillaume III de Vergy, Antoine de Granvelle, Claude de Choiseul, and François-Auguste de Rohan. The university founded at Dôle in 1422 and endowed from 1497 with faculties of Theology and Canon Law was transferred to Besançon in 1671. It currently comprises faculties of Letters, Medicine, and Science. The Civic Library contains precious manuscripts such as a 9th-century codex with the four Gospels, perhaps from the abbey of Saint-Claude, an 11th-century psalter, Gospels from the 11th and 12th centuries, a 13th-century Greek breviary, an Ethiopian roll of justification, etc. (H. Leclercq, s.V. in *DACL*, II, cols. 824–28).
L. Loyc, *Histoire de l’église de B.*, 6 vols., ibid. 1901–1903; L. Duchesne, *Fastes épiscopaux de l’ancienne Gaule*, 2nd ed., I, Paris 1907, pp. 48–62; III, ibid. 1915, pp. 198–216; G. Bardy, *Les anciennes listes épiscopales de B.*, in *Mémoires des Sociétés d’émulation du Doubs*, 8th ser., 9 (1918), pp. 97–119. Enrico Josi