Orange

ORANGE. - City and ancient diocese in the department of Vaucluse in southern France. It is the ancient Arausio of Gallia Narbonensis. There Augustus founded the "colonia Iulia Secundorum Arausio" with veterans of the II legion. The city flourished during the Roman domination: this is attested by a triumphal arch in honor of Tiberius, a theater for ca. 7000 spectators, and a gymnasium that extended for over 400 m.

O. was devastated by the Visigoths in 412. In 1173 the Baux became lords of O., in 1413 the Chalon; meanwhile in 1564 a university was founded there, which was suppressed by the French Revolution. With the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis the lordship of O. passed to William of Nassau. At the beginning of the 17th century Maurice of Nassau fortified the city, which was however dismantled and occupied in 1673 by the army of Louis XIV. By the Treaty of Ryswick of 1697 O. passed to William of Orange, King of England, in 1713. By the Treaty of Utrecht the King of Prussia, who had inherited it, returned O. to France, but the house of Nassau obtained the transfer of the title of principality of Orange to a part of Guelders. In 314 at the Council of Arles O. was represented by the priest Faustinus; Bishop Constantius took part in Aquileia in 381 and in Milan in 390; Justus was present at the Council of O. of 441; his successors are known through the whole of the 6th century, then resume when the diocese of St-Paul-Trois-Châteaux was united to O. Its last bishop was Msgr. G. L. de Tillet, from 1774 to 1790, the year in which the diocese was suppressed by the Revolution. Pius VII re-established it in 1817, appointing there Msgr. P. T. D. Astros, but it was suppressed again shortly afterward and united to Avignon. The Synod of 8 Nov. 441 was presided over by St. Hilary of Arles; the second, of 3 July 520, by Caesarius of Arles. The latter is of special importance in the history of dogma, because there was condemned that Semi-Pelagian tendency which had had its center among the monks of Lérins. On the basis of propositions drawn from the works of St. Augustine and of Prosper of Aquitaine, and sent by Pope Felix IV, 25 dogmatic canons were proposed (v. GRAZIA, II, d. and SEMIPELAGIANISMO). Bishop Eutropius was deposed in the basilica that he had built outside the city and that afterward took the name of St. Eutropius, whose epitaph, partly surviving, was engraved on the lid of a reused pagan sarcophagus (E. Le Blant, Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, II, Paris 1865, pl. 67, nos. 402 ff.; CIL, XII, 1272-73). The church of St. Eutropius was sacked by the Huguenots in 1561, as were also the Cathedral, whose treasury they plundered, and the churches of the Cordeliers, of the Nonains and of St. John. King Charles IV in 1365 endowed O. with a university that was suppressed by the Revolution.

Enrico Josi

MARTYRS OF O., blessed. - On 1 May 1794, 29 religious women of Bollène (diocese of Avignon), who had refused to take the oath prescribed by the French republican government, were arrested and brought to O.

Locked up in the prison of the Cure, where 4 sisters were already present (and they were later joined by several others), they transformed the prison into a new community, with its own superior, a corresponding choir, and intense and prolonged practices of piety. Accused of "fanaticism and superstition," 32 of them were condemned to death by the revolutionary tribunal. Between 6 and 26 of the following July 1794, in groups, they suffered martyrdom with joyful spirit in the square of O. Sixteen belonged to the Order of the Ursulines, thirteen to the Congregation of Perpetual Adoration, two were Cistercians and one a Benedictine.

They were beatified by Pius XI on 10 May 1925. Feast on 9 July.

Piero Sannazzaro