Ghent (Flemish Gent), Diocese of

GHENT (Flemish Gent), Diocese of. - City and diocese in Belgium, capital of the province of East Flanders, near the confluence of the Scheldt and the Lys; it is crossed by many canals.

It has an area of about 2,994 sq km with a population of 1,226,465 inhabitants, of whom 1,120,000 are Catholics. It has 387 parishes served by 1,325 diocesan priests

(from Images de Belgique. Collection published under the auspices of the Commissariat général du Tourisme, Ghent - Brussels 1918, pp. 5) GAND, DIOCESI di. - Cathedral of St. Bavo, built on the site of the ancient chapel of St. John the Baptist in the 10th century.

diocesan and 392 regular clergy; 65 male communities with 1,631 professed and 564 female with 9,103 professed, two seminaries (1949). It is a suffragan of Malines.

St. Amand (7th century) founded in the territory now occupied by G. two abbeys, one at St. Peter's in Mont Blandin and the other of St. Bavo in the place called Ganda. Einhard was abbot of the two monasteries from 814 to 840; subsequently the abbey of St. Bavo became autonomous (N. Grisson, The early abbots of St. Bavos of Ghent, in Revue bénédictine, 49 [1937], p. 37 ff.; F. Gansshof, Eginhard à Gand, in Bulletin de la Société d'histoire et d'arch. de Gand, 1926, p. 14).

These two abbeys of St. Peter and St. Bavo functioned simultaneously as monastic and as parochial; but around the end of the 11th century the increase in population was such that the monks of St. Bavo built the new abbey church; while those of St. Peter erected for the faithful the church of St. Mary; then a chapel in the castle and in the port St. John, St. James and St. Nicholas.

Paul III on 22 July 1536 granted Charles V the secularization of the abbey of St. Bavo and the monks transferred their Chapter to the parish church of St. John the Baptist.

St. Saviour was the parish church of the ancient village of St. Bavo, distinct from that of the nearby abbey from the beginning of the 12th century. Charles V had it demolished in 1540 to build the citadel called by the Spaniards also St. Farallde, a parish and collegiate church sacked in 1566 and destroyed in 1579.

G. was erected a diocese by Paul IV on 12 May 1559. Among the bishops of G. are to be remembered Cornelius Jansenius (1568) and Antonius Triest (1622-57), of great generosity and founder of charitable institutions.

Heroic resistance was offered by the seminarians of G. to Napoleonic despotism in 1813.

The imposing cathedral of St. Bavo is in Gothic style. Beneath the choir is a vast Romanesque crypt. In front of the high altar are four great candelabra in red bronze, executed by Benedetto di Rovezzano (1525) and bearing the arms of Henry VIII of England, to whom they belonged, and of Bishop Triest, who donated them to the church. In one of the altars is found the admirable polyptych of the brothers van Eyck, a masterpiece of Flemish painting of the 15th century, commissioned from Hubert van Eyck, who died in 1426, finished by his brother John for Joos Vydt, lord of Pamele, and inaugurated on 6 May 1632; it represents the adoration of the Divine Lamb. The polyptych could be reconstituted in its integrity in 1920. Also notable in another altar is the painting by Rubens (1623-24) representing the entry of St. Bavo into the abbey of St. Amand.

The beffroi erected around 1330 is 118 m. high and in 1378 was surmounted by a gilded bronze dragon 3.50 m. high. The hôtel de ville is composed of two buildings; the ancient house of the aldermen on a design by Rombaut Keldermans and Herman de Waghemakers (1518) in ogival style; joined to it is the new house of the aldermen called Parchone, on a design inspired by the Italian Renaissance (1600-22).

In the Brock quarter the church of the great Beguinage dedicated to St. Elizabeth was erected in the 12th century; it served as a parish only for the Beguines; when these were transferred to the new great Beguinage of Mount St. Amand the church of St. Elizabeth became a parish on 24 Sept. 1874. The church of St. Nicholas was begun in the 12th century, but rebuilt in the 15th.

The church of St. Michael, in Gothic style, begun in 1445, was finished in the 17th century; the interior was restored in 1893; in the transept is found the painting of the Crucifixion by van Dyck (1629). The church of St. James was begun in Romanesque style in the 12th century and was finished in Gothic style at the end of the 15th century and then modified several times. The church of St. Peter was erected between 1629 and 1719; its dome is 57 m. high.

The Museum of Archaeology occupies the ancient church of the Discalced Carmelites. The Museum of Fine Arts offers a rich collection of sculptures and paintings, ranging from the primitives to the moderns. The State University in the Flemish language was founded in 1816 by William I, king of the Netherlands, and comprises all the faculties.

Enrico Josi