Dijon, Diocese of. – The capital of the Côte-d'Or department in France, it is situated at the confluence of the Ouche and Suzon rivers on the Burgundy Canal. The diocese covers an area of 875.344 sq. km. and has a population of 335,602 (census of April 1946), of whom 325,000 are Catholic. *D. Divio*, or *Castrum Divionense*, was a city in the territory of the Lingones during the Gallo-Roman period. It later belonged to the Kingdom of Burgundy; from 1015 it was part of the Duchy of Burgundy until 1477, when Louis XI incorporated it into the Kingdom of France. It endured a Swiss siege in 1513. The diocese was established by Clement XII on 9 April 1731, carved out of the Diocese of Langres.
Under the Concordat of 1802, it included the departments of Côte-d'Or and Haute-Marne, as the Diocese of Langres had been suppressed; when Langres was restored in 1817, Dijon retained certain territories that had previously belonged to the dioceses of Langres, Autun, Chalon, and Besançon. The diocese is divided into three archdeaconries: the first, of St Benignus, comprises 15 deaneries and 190 parishes; the second, of St Vorles, has 6 deaneries and 78 parishes; the third, of Our Lady, is subdivided into the two archpriestships of Beaune and Semur, encompassing 16 deaneries and 253 parishes. In total, there are 727 parishes served by only 337 diocesan priests and 73 regular clergy (1948). It is a suffragan of Lyon. The patron saint of the diocese is St Benignus.
Christianity soon penetrated Dijon. St Gregory of Tours (*In gloria martyrum*, 50) relates that the people went to venerate in a crypt the tomb of an unknown man whom they believed to be a saint; Gregory, Bishop of Langres (505–30), sought to oppose this, but one night the saint appeared to him, Gregory had the sarcophagus isolated, restored the crypt, built a basilica, and founded a monastery. Only a few years later, some pilgrims returning from Italy would have brought the *passio* of St Benignus to the bishop.
Fr. Van Hoof pointed out (*Acta S.S. Novembris*, I, Paris 1887, p. 138) that this *passio* is fashioned after that of the saints of Saulieu, Andochius, Thyrsus, and Felix (*ibid.*, p. 155); he was followed by Duchesne (*Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule*, I, 2nd ed., Paris 1907, pp. 51 ff.) and Delehaye (*Les origines du culte des Martyrs*, 2nd ed., Brussels 1933, pp. 86, 354).
The basilica and monastery received donations from King Guntram in 584; the restorations were carried out c. 1870 by Isaac, Bishop of Langres. Nothing remains of the rotunda built in 990 by Abbot William. In 1001 it was transformed into a Romanesque building, which was consecrated by Paschal II. In 1106, the tomb of an unknown St Pascasia may have been included in the new church. Further modifications were made in 1280 and the building was restored several times thereafter. Today, very few ancient remains are visible: inside, the crypt, where the tomb of St Benignus was discovered in 1858; outside, part of the portal later decorated by Bouchardon with the martyrdom of St Stephen; some architectural elements of the ancient monastery also survive. The central spire, 95.59 m high, was erected in 1742. Outside the *castrum* stood the church and Benedictine abbey of St John; now a parish church, it was the burial place of the Bishops of Langres, including Gregory, whose epitaph was composed by Venantius Fortunatus and Tetradius (539–72; E. Le Blant, *Recueil des inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule*, I, Paris 1856, p. 5, no. 2; p. 6, no. 3).
The church of St Stephen is certainly the intramural basilica mentioned by Gregory of Tours. The attached abbey, originally Benedictine, passed to the Augustinians in 1113; it became a cathedral in 1731, then a granary in 1792, and subsequently a stock exchange in 1897. Other abbeys were those attached to the churches of St Michael and the Holy Trinity. St Michael’s was an abbey c. 1000; externally it appears Gothic, internally it is classical. The Carthusian abbey of the Holy Trinity was founded at Champmol by Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in 1383; consecrated in 1388, it was suppressed during the Revolution (F. Mercier, *La Chartreuse de Champmol*, Dijon 1920).
Of Gothic style are the churches of: Notre-Dame of Dijon (1252–1334); Notre-Dame de Semur; and the abbey of St-Seine (Seine).
Besides St Benignus, Dijon especially honours: St Seine (Seine), born at Magny and martyred in 580, founder of the monastery of Reims; St William (961–1031), who became abbot of St Benignus in Dijon in 990 (a reformer of the Benedictine Order in the 10th century); St Robert of Molesme; and St Stephen Harding. Born in Dijon were St Jane Frances de Chantal (1572–1641) and Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1607–1704), the Venerable Sister Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament (1619–48), known as the Little Saint of Beaune, and the Venerable Bénigne Joly, canon of St Stephen’s in Dijon (1614–72).
Among the Christian inscriptions found in Dijon, two Merovingian ones are noted: the first of a *Banderisima* (CIL, XIII, 5463) and the other of a monk Turpicius (ibid., 5593). For Christian sarcophagi V. Wilpert, *Sarcophagi*, I, p. 91; II, pp. 5, 264; pl. 65, 2, 3. – See pl. XCV.