COUTANCES, DIOCESE of. - Diocese and city of France in the department of La Manche. It extends over 5,800 sq. km. It comprises six archpriesthoods (C., Cherbourg, Valognes, Avranches, Mortain, and Saint-Lô), 49 deaneries and 670 parishes, 679 diocesan priests and 43 regular clergy. It has 426,000 inhabitants, of whom 416,000 are Catholics; at C. is located the major seminary of the diocese (1948).
The bishop of C. is honored with the privilege of the sacred pallium, conferred by Pius X by brief of 17 July 1907. Since 1854 he has borne the title of bishop of C. and of Avranches, a diocese that was suppressed in 1801. C. is suffragan to Rouen. Patroness of the diocese is the Blessed Virgin; secondary patron, St. Lô.
C. possesses an almost complete list of its bishops, preserved in three copies from the 12th and 13th centuries; the earliest bishop mentioned is Leonziano, who attended the Council of Orléans in 511.
The abbey of Mont-St-Michel (S. Michael in periculo maris), which was located in the ancient diocese of Avranches, was a place of pilgrimage much frequented in the Middle Ages. It became a Benedictine abbey in 966; the church was consecrated in 1022; it passed to the Benedictine Congregation of the Maurists in 1622; it became a collegiate church in 1709. Since the 19th century, pilgrimages have resumed, and an annual solemn feast is celebrated.