Viviers, Diocese of

VIVIERS, Diocese of. - City and diocese in the department of Ardèche (France).

It has an area of 5,527 sq km with a population of 232,000 inhabitants, of whom 202,826 are Catholics distributed in 372 parishes, served by 450 diocesan priests and 30 regulars; it has a major and a minor seminary, 7 male religious communities and 35 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 450). The diocese is a suffragan of Avignon; the patron of the diocese is St. Vincent. Following the destruction of Alba Augusta or Alba Helviorum (on which Aps arose), capital of the Helvii, by Crocus king of the Vandals, in 411, the bishop of Alba, Ausonius, took refuge with the population at Vivarum (Viviers) in a castle dominating the Rhône. There the first bishop was Promotus; then Venantius (ca. 517-35), a disciple of St. Avitus of Vienne, is remembered; Melanius II, Longinus, Arcontius; Cardinal John II (1073-1095) who accompanied Urban II to the Council of Clermont; William (1147), Cardinal Peter of Mortemart (1322-25), Cardinal P. De Sarcenas (1373-75), Cardinal J. Fraczon De Brogny (1383-98), Cardinal A. Farnese (1560-65); later Bonnel (1836-41), who was succeeded by J. H. Guibert, afterwards archbishop of Paris. V. was often afflicted by religious struggles, in the 13th century by the Albigensians, in 1627-29 by the Calvinists. The diocese was suppressed by the Concordat of 1801 and re-established in 1823.

The construction at V. of a church that would have been destroyed by the Saracens is attributed to St. Venantius, ca. the first half of the 6th century. Only Leodegarius or Ligerius, bishop of V. between 1096 and 1119, had the present Cathedral, St. Vincent, built, which was consecrated on 27 Feb. 1119 by Callixtus II. Subsequently the portico and the chapels in the ambulatory were added. Bishop Claude de Tournon (1498-1542) built a larger choir, offering tapestries to decorate it; other works were carried out by Charles De Tournon, who succeeded his uncle (d. 1550); in 1562 the Cathedral was sacked by the Huguenots, the Catholics returned to the Cathedral in 1577, but the bishop went to reside at Bourg-Saint-Andéol. The restorations begun in 1598 were completed in 1604. Msgr. De La Baume de Suze (1621-90) had the chapels repaired and the choir stalls carved; Msgr. De Villeneuve had the high altar and the episcopal palace made ca. 1728. The Concordat suppressed the diocese of V., uniting it with that of Mende; in 1822 the see was re-established and Msgr. Guibert offered for the choir in 1858 tapestries of the 18th century. The present building now presents itself with a single nave and a higher polygonal choir. In front of the façade in the 13th century a portico was built, partly destroyed in the 16th, then re-established and restored in the 19th century. It is flanked by a detached tower of the 11th-12th centuries.

The principal pilgrimage sanctuaries in the diocese are Notre-Dame de Châlons and Notre-Dame d'Ay near Satillieu; Notre-Dame de Montaigu at Tournon; Notre-Dame de Bon Secours at La Blachère; and especially the pilgrimage to the tomb of St. John Francis Regis at La Louvesc.

Enrico Josi