Coutances, Diocese of

COUTANCES, Diocese of. - Diocese and city of France in the department of la Manche. It extends over 5,800 sq. km. It comprises six archpriestries (C., Cherbourg, Valognes, Avranches, Mortain and Saint-Lô), 49 deaneries and 670 parishes, 679 diocesan priests and 43 regulars. It has 426,000 inhabitants, of whom 416,000 are Catholics; the diocese's major seminary is located at C. (1948).

The bishop of C. is honored with the privilege of the sacred pallium, conferred by Pius X with a brief of 17 July 1907. Since 1854 he bears the title of bishop of C. and of Avranches, a diocese that was suppressed in 1801. C. is a suffragan of Rouen. The patroness of the diocese is the Most Holy Virgin; the secondary patron is St. Lô.

C. possesses an almost complete list of its bishops, preserved in three copies of the 12th and 13th centuries; the earliest bishop remembered is Leonziano, who in 511 was at the Council of Orléans.

The abbey of Mont-St-Michel (S. Michael in periculo maris), which was located in the ancient diocese of Avranches, was a much-frequented place of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages. It was a Benedictine abbey in 966; the church was consecrated in 1022; it passed to the Benedictine Congregation of the Maurists in 1622; it became collegiate in 1709. Since the 19th century the pilgrimages have resumed and a solemn annual feast is celebrated.

Elia Griffe