CHAMBÉRY, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - In the department of Savoy (France). It was erected at the request of King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia by Pius VI in 1779 with part of the territory until then dependent on the diocese of Grenoble. Having become vacant following the death of its bishop Conseil, the see was suppressed. The concordat of 1801 re-established it with the title of C. and Geneva. In 1817 it was detached from the metropolitan see of Lyon in order to be elevated to an archbishopric with Aosta as suffragan. At that time it comprised a total of 627 parishes. Subsequently, however, those belonging to the canton of Geneva were annexed to the diocese of Lausanne (1819), which also took the title of Geneva (1821). Shortly after the erection of the bishopric of Annecy (1822) and of the dioceses of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and Tarentaise (1825), the archdiocese of C. was reduced to its present dimensions.
Today it comprises a part of the department of Savoy, 8 parishes of the district of Albertville and 10 of the department of Haute-Savoie, with 174 parishes divided into 21 archpriestries over an area of 2400 sq km. It has 130,000 Catholics, 282 diocesan priests and 91 regulars; 10 male religious communities with 112 religious, 76 female communities with 580 religious. Free secondary education is provided in 11 boys' colleges with 1484 pupils and 18 girls' colleges with 1790 pupils. As metropolitan of the province of Savoy, the archbishop of C. has as suffragans the bishops of Tarentaise, Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and Annecy. The see has been occupied by 2 bishops and 11 archbishops, among them the cardinals Billiet and Dubillard. The capital of the department of Savoy, C. is situated at the confluence of the Albane with the Leysse. The city has 28,000 inhabitants. It does not go back to a high antiquity. The Roman city occupied the present suburb of Lémence, whence the name of Lamineorum, by which it is sometimes designated. More common, however, is the name of Camberium, Camberiacum, Civaro or Camerinum, from the names of localities now vanished. In 1230 it was ceded to Count Thomas I of Savoy, who had the famous castle built there as the residence of the princes of his family. Burned in 1748 and in 1798, it was restored at the beginning of the 19th century. C. remained the capital of Savoy until the 16th century, when it yielded its place to Turin.
A beautiful Gothic cathedral adorns the city. Within the diocesan territory are situated the abbeys of la Grâce-Dieu, of N.-D. de Tamié of the Cistercians founded in 1128, from 1677 and again from 1861 of the Trappists, and the Benedictine one of Hautecombe.
C. is moreover the birthplace of two writers: the brothers Xavier (d. 1852) and Joseph de Maistre (d. 1821), no less esteemed for their talent as writers than for the sincerity of their faith.
Bibliography7 works
Antonio Soirat