LIEGI, DIOCESI of. — Diocese and capital city of the province of the same name in Belgium.
It has an area of 6,283 sq. km., with 1,423,297 inhabitants, of whom 1,300,000 are Catholics. It has 778 parishes, with 1,810 diocesan priests and 710 religious priests; two seminaries; 92 male and 496 female religious communities (Annuario Pontificio, 1951, p. 246).
The territory of L. originally belonged to the diocese of Trier, then to that of Cologne, and subsequently an episcopal see was established at Tongres, northeast of L.; its bishop took part in the Council of Rimini (359–60). After Tongres was destroyed, the bishop St. Servatius settled at Maestricht. In the 6th century settlements began to arise in the vicus Leudicus or Leodium, where the bishop St. Lambert (669–705) was killed; his remains were transported to Maestricht, to the church of St. Peter. At the site of his martyrdom, however, the bishop St. Hubert erected a church dedicated to Our Lady and St. Lambert, and his relics were later transferred there. The bishops continued to call themselves bishops of Tongres, or also bishops of Tongres and L.
Erigero, a monk of Lobbes, composed around 980 the Gesta of the bishops of Tongres and L. up to the middle of the 7th century; these were continued in 1153 by Anselm, dean of St. Hubert, up to Bishop Vazone. Other lists are found in an 11th-century codex in the Library of Valenciennes (no. 166), which extends to Bishop Reinard (1025–38), and in ms. lat. 4208 of the National Library of Paris, which reaches Bishop Theodwin (1048–75), Vazone’s successor. While preaching the Second Crusade, St. Bernard stopped at L. on Saturday, 18 January 1147, and remained there for four days, performing miracles after celebrating Mass on the following Sunday at St. Lambert (Historia miraculorum in itinere germanico patratorum, I, II, 10; III, 1 and 2, in MGH, Scriptores, XXVI, pp. 133–34).
The bishop then donated Aulne Abbey, where the following year monks from Clairvaux founded the Cistercian abbey in 1146. St. Bernard established the abbey of Villers. The Ottonian dynasty made the bishops princes of L., and they steadily extended their dominion and rights until the 13th century, over part of Lower Lorraine (G. Kurth, Nothre de Liège et la civilisation au Xᵉ siècle, 2 vols., Paris 1905). At the end of the 12th century new walls were built; the commune imposed a tax called permeté even on ecclesiastics, causing unrest that ended only in 1287 with the «Paix des clercs». Archdeacons of the church of L. included James of Troyes, later Urban IV (1261–64), and Theobald Visconti, later Blessed Gregory X (1271–72). In the 14th century the struggles between the prince-bishops and the patriciate began. In the 17th century the bishops belonged to the house of Bavaria; among them was remembered the prince-bishop Maximilian Henry (1650–1680), who, after defeating the democratic party known as the Grignoux, obtained in 1684 that the appointment of the Council be reserved to the bishop and the «conservators» (Chiroux).
The diocese, suppressed during the French Revolution, was re-established on 10 April 1802, incorporating the two departments of Ourte and Lower Meuse; in 1818 part of its territory passed to Prussia, and in 1839 to Limburg. The diocese is suffragan to Mechelen. The cathedral of St. Paul, founded in 968, was rebuilt in 1480. The choir is in the Gothic style and is still that of the 13th century, while the naves date from the 16th century. The bell tower, destroyed during the French Revolution, was rebuilt in 1812. The interior decoration of the vaults, painted in 1579
was restored in 1860. It houses the gilded reliquary urn of St. Lambert, from the 10th century.
Among the other churches are: the Romanesque church of St. Bartholomew, with its characteristic copper baptismal font supported by ten bulls, attributed to Regnier de Huy (1107–18); St. John the Evangelist, erected by Bishop Notger (982) in imitation of Aachen Cathedral, but rebuilt in the 11th, 12th, and 18th centuries; St. James, in the Gothic style, erected in the 12th century and rebuilt in the 16th; Holy Cross, from the 13th century, with restorations from the 14th and 15th centuries; St. Denis, from the 14th century; St. Martin, with stained-glass windows donated by E. de la Mark (1522–38); St. Christopher (1241–42); and St. Gervasius (13th–14th centuries). In the church of Holy Cross there is preserved a bronze key known as that of St. Hubert, sent by one of the Popes contemporary with Bishop Hubert (697–727); it is made of bronze, with later decorations (images of St. Peter, of Jesus Christ seated, and of the Crucifixion between Our Lady and St. John). The collegiate church of St. Martin formerly possessed the ivory diptych of Fl. Asturius, consul in 449; one of its two leaves, known from a copy of 1584, had already disappeared by 1600; the second leaf is preserved at Darmstadt. The diptych of Anastasius, consul in 517, formerly belonging to the cathedral of St. Lambert, is preserved in two halves, one in the South Kensington Museum in London and the other in the Berlin Museum. In the treasury of the church of Notre-Dame, the cathedral of Tongres, half of a diptych is preserved, bearing the scene of an Evangelist and, on the reverse, the names of the bishops of Tongres from 840 to 956.
The Palace of the prince-bishops of L., now converted into a Palace of Justice, was rebuilt in 1526 by A. van Mulcken. The former house of J. Curtius (1598–1606) is now the seat of the Archaeological Museum, rich in 10th-century ivories and local sculptures from the 12th century; the Gospel Book of Bishop Notger (972–1008) is preserved there. The Ausembourg Palace (1735–40) has become the Museum of Decorative Arts. There are also the Museum or Academy of Fine Arts, containing a collection of Belgian and French painters and modern sculptures and terracottas from various churches; the Museum of Walloon Art; the Arms Museum; and the Gentry Museum. The abbey of St. Lawrence has been converted into a military hospital. The University has a library containing several illuminated manuscripts.