ORANGE. — City and ancient diocese in the department of Vaucluse in southern France. It is the ancient Arausio of Gallia Narbonensis. Augustus founded there the “colonia Iulia Secundorum Arausio” with veterans of the II Legion. The city flourished during Roman rule, as testified by a triumphal arch in honor of Tiberius, a theater for approximately 7,000 spectators, and a gymnasium extending for more than 400 m.
O. was devastated by the Visigoths in 412. In 1173 the Baux became lords of O., and in 1413 the Chalon; meanwhile, in 1564, a university was founded there, later suppressed by the French Revolution. By the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, the lordship of O. passed to Guglielmo di Nassau. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Maurizio di Nassau fortified the city, which was nevertheless dismantled and occupied in 1673 by the army of Luigi XIV. By the Treaty of Ryswick of 1697, O. passed to Guglielmo di 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 permission to transfer the title of principality of Orange to part of Gueldria. In 314, at the Council of Arles, O. was represented by the presbyter Faustino; the bishop Costanzo took part in the councils of Aquileia in 381 and Milan in 390; Giusto was present at the Council of O. in 441. His successors are known through the end of the sixth century, and then again from the time when the diocese of St-Paul-Trois-Châteaux was united to O. Its last bishop was Mons. G. L. de Tillet, from 1774 to 1790, the year in which the diocese was suppressed by the Revolution. Pius VII restored it in 1817, appointing Mons. P. T. D. Astros, but it was suppressed again immediately afterward and united to Avignon. The Synod of 8 November 441 was presided over by s. Ilario of Arles; the second, on 3 July 520, by Cesario of Arles. The latter is of particular importance in the history of dogma, because it condemned there the semi-Pelagian tendency that had had its center among the monks of Lérins. On the basis of propositions drawn from the works of s. Agostino and Prospero di Aquitania and sent by Pope Felice IV, 25 dogmatic canons were proposed (v. PELAGIO E PELAGIANESIMO). The bishop Eutropio was deposed in the basilica he had built outside the city, which later took the name of S. Eutropio; its epitaph, partly preserved, was engraved on the cover of a pagan sarcophagus that had been reused (E. Le Blant, Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, II, Parigi 1865, pl. 67, nos. 402 ff.; CIL, XII, 1272–73). The church of S. Eutropio was looted by the Huguenots in 1561, as were the Cathedral, whose treasury they pierced through, and the churches of the Cordeliers, Nonains, and S. Giovanni. King Carlo IV endowed O. with a university in 1365; it was suppressed by the Revolution.
MARTIRI DI O., blessed. — On 1 May 1794, 29 religious women from Bollène (diocese of Avignon), who had refused to take the oath prescribed by the French republican government, were arrested and taken to O.
Confined in the prison of the Cure, where 4 fellow religious were already being held (and were later joined by several others), they transformed the prison into a new community, with their own superior, an accompanying choir, and intense, prolonged practices of piety. Accused of “fanaticism and superstition,” 32 of them were condemned to death by the revolutionary tribunal. Between 6 and 26 sg. 1794, in successive groups, they joyfully endured martyrdom 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 was a Benedictine.
They were beatified by Pius XI on 10 May 1925. Feast day: 9 July.