VIVIERS, DIOCESE OF. – A city and diocese in the department of Ardèche (France).
It has an area of 5,527 sq km with a population of 232,000, of whom 202,826 are Catholics distributed across 372 parishes, served by 450 diocesan priests and 30 religious; it has a major and minor seminary, 7 male religious communities and 35 female (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 450). The diocese is a suffragan of Avignon; the patron saint of the diocese is St Vincent. Following the destruction of Alba Augusta or Alba Helviorum (on which Alès stands), the capital of the Helvii, by the Vandal king Croco in 411, the bishop of Alba, Ausonius, took refuge with the population at Vivarium (Viviers) in a castle overlooking the Rhône. The first bishop there was Promotus; then are recorded Venantius (c. 517–35), a disciple of St Avitus of Vienne; Melanius II, Longinus, Arcontius; Cardinal John II (1073–95), who accompanied Urban II to the Council of Clermont; William (1147), Cardinal Peter of Mortemart (1322–25), Cardinal P. de Sarcénas (1373–75), Cardinal J. Fraczon de Brogny (1383–98), Cardinal A. Farnese (1560–65); later Bonnel (1836–41), succeeded by J. H. Guibert, who later became Archbishop of Paris. V. was often afflicted by religious strife, in the 13th century by the Albigensians, and in 1627–29 by the Calvinists. The diocese was suppressed by the Concordat of 1801 and re-established in 1823.
Attributed to St Venantius, around the first half of the 6th century, is the construction at V. of a church said to have been destroyed by the Saracens. Only Leodegarius or Ligarius, bishop of V. between 1096 and 1119, had the present cathedral, St Vincent, built; it was consecrated on 27 February 1119 by Calixtus II. Later the portico and chapels in the ambulatory were added. Bishop Claude de Tournon (1498–1542) built a larger choir, providing tapestries to decorate it; further work was carried out by Charles de Tournon, who succeeded his uncle (d. 1550). In 1562 the cathedral was sacked by the Huguenots; Catholics returned to the cathedral in 1577, but the bishop went to reside at Bourg-Saint-Andéol. Restorations begun in 1508 were completed in 1604. Monsignor de La Baume de Suze (1621–90) had the chapels repaired and the choir stalls carved; Monsignor de Villeneuve had the high altar and episcopal palace made c. 1728. The Concordat
VIVIERS – SEVEN DEADLY SINS