VERDUN, DIOCESI of. — Diocese and capital city of the Meuse department in France. It has an area of 6,240 sq. km and a population of 188,780, of whom 180,000 are Catholics, distributed among 551 parishes served by 339 diocesan and 12 religious priests; it has a major and a minor seminary, 3 male and 56 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 445). It is a suffragan of Besançon. Its patroness is the Blessed Virgin Assumed into Heaven.
The episcopal list was compiled by Bishop Dadone in 893, who limited it to his two predecessors, Attone and Berenardo. Bertario, a canon of St-Vanne, made use of a catalogue that had escaped the fire, adding to it indications of the burials, most of them in the church of St-Vanne. His catalogue was continued in the 11th century up to 1047 and later
