EVREUX, DIOCESIS of. — City and diocese of France, capital of the department of Eure, on the Iton River. 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 and 33 regular priests, one seminary, 2 male and 25 female religious communities (1949). The diocese is suffragan to Rouen. The Cathedral is dedicated to Mary Most Holy Assumed into heaven, patroness of the diocese.
It formed part of the II Lugdunian province. The first bishop is considered to have been St. Taurinus, mentioned in the Martyrology of Usuard; Mauricius, Licinius, and Landolfus are known in the 6th century, the latter of whom is said to have founded the basilica of St. Taurinus. To the 7th century belong Erminolfus, Ragnarius, Concessus, Aquilinus, and Desiderius; to the 8th, Gervoldus, later abbot of Fontenelle. In the 9th century came Guntbertus, Hilduinus, and Sibardus, who was present at the invasion of E. by the Normans (892). For the bishops of E. from 1201 to 1591 V. EUBULO, 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 in part from the 11th century and in part from the following century. The building, burned in 1119, was reconstructed between 1126 and 1137; destroyed again in 1194, it was rebuilt from the middle of the 13th century through the 14th; in its architecture it recalls the cathedral of Amiens. Its vaults, dating from the 14th to the 16th century, are artistic. The reliquary of St. Taurinus is one of the finest products of 13th-century goldsmithery. On the exterior, in one of the towers, are inserted 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., 1ª serie, 6 [1868], pp. 15–16; A. Silvagni, Inscr. Christ. Urbis Romæ, nuova serie, I, Roma 1922, n. 3886). — Vedi tav. LX.
The Benedictine nunnery of the Most Holy Savior, founded in the 11th century, was destroyed in the 12th; transferred outside the city, it was later converted into a barracks.