LUÇON, DIOCESE of. - City and diocese in the department of the Vendée in France. The diocese has the same boundaries as the department; it has an area of approximately 6,723 sq. km., with a population of 400,000 inhabitants,
of whom 392,000 are Catholics. It is divided into 2 archdeaconries, 4 archpriesthoods, 30 deaneries, and 304 parishes; it has 611 diocesan priests and 125 regular clergy, a major and a minor seminary; 1 male religious community and 20 female ones (Annuario Pontificio 1951, p. 256).
The diocese was created by Pope Giovanni XXII on 13 Aug. 1317 by the dismemberment of the diocese of Poitiers, upon which depended the Benedictine abbey of L., founded in 675, destroyed in the 9th and 11th centuries, rebuilt at the end of the latter, with a church consecrated on 19 Apr. 1121 and made a cathedral in 1317. The monastery was secularized in 1468 by Paolo II. Following the Concordat, it was suppressed on 29 Nov. 1801 and annexed to that of La Rochelle; re-established on 27 July 1817, it was reduced by certain parishes transferred to the diocese of Nantes and enlarged by the territory of the suppressed see of Maillezis, which had been erected in 1317 by Giovanni XXII.
Among its prelates may be mentioned Nicola Coeur (1441-51), the cardinals Giovanni di Lorena (1523-24), Luigi di Borbone (1524-27), Giacomo Duplessis-Richelieu (1584-92), and Armando Duplessis-Richelieu (1606-23); and the bishops De Mercy (1775-90) and R. F. Soyer (1821-45).
The Cathedral is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.