ÉVREUX, Diocese of. - City and diocese of France, capital of the department of Eure, on the river Iton. It extends over 603,748 sq. km. with a population of 303,800 inhabitants, of whom 303,000 are Catholics. It has 582 parishes, served by 335 secular priests and 33 regulars, a seminary, 2 male religious communities and 25 female ones (1949). The diocese is a suffragan of Rouen. The Cathedral is dedicated to Mary Most Holy Assumed into heaven, patroness of the diocese.
It formed part of the Second Lyonnaise province. St. Taurinus, remembered in Usuard's Martyrology, is considered the first bishop; known in the 6th century are Mauricius, Licinius and Landulf, who is said to have built the basilica of St. Taurinus. To the 7th century belong Ermenulf, Ragnaric, Concessus, Aquilinus and Desiderius; to the 8th century Gervold, later abbot of Fontenelle. To the 9th century Guntebert, Hilduin and Sibard, who was present at the invasion of E. by the Normans (892). For the bishops of E. from 1201 to 1591 v. Eubel, I, pp. 234-35; II, p. 148; III, p. 206; from 1592 to 1664 P. Gaucher, Hierarchia medii et recentioris aevi (Münster 1935, pp. 179-80).
The Gothic basilica of St. Taurinus dates partly to the 11th century and partly to the following one. The building, set on fire in 1119, was rebuilt between 1126-37; destroyed again in 1194 it was rebuilt from the middle of the 13th century to the 14th; in its architecture it recalls the cathedral of Amiens. Artistic are the windows, which date from the 14th to the 16th century. The reliquary of St. Taurinus is one of the finest products of 13th-century goldsmithing. On the outside, in one of the towers, are set 4 marble fragments of an ancient Christian inscription that was brought from Rome to the abbey of Pontissara (G. B. De Rossi, Bull. arch. crist., 1st series, 6 [1868], pp. 15-16; A. Silvagni, Inscr. Christ. Urbis Romæ, new series, I, Rome 1922, n. 3886). - See plate LX.
The Benedictine female abbey of the Most Holy Savior, founded in the 11th century, was destroyed in the 12th century; and, transferred outside the city, it was later reduced to a barracks.
Bibliography3 works
Enrico Josi