Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Marseille

Archdiocese of Marseille Archidioecesis Massiliensis Archidiocèse de Marseille
Marseille Cathedral
Location
Country	France
Ecclesiastical province	Marseille
Statistics
Area	650 km2 (250 sq mi)
Population - Total - Catholics	(as of 2021) 1,082,300 741,000 (68.5%)
Information
Denomination	Catholic Church
Sui iuris church	Latin Church
Rite	Roman Rite
Established	1st Century
Cathedral	Cathedral Basilica of St Mary Major
Patron saint	St Lazarus of Bethany
Current leadership
Pope	Francis
Metropolitan Archbishop	Jean-Marc Aveline
Bishops emeritus	Georges Pontier
Map
Website
Website of the Archdiocese

The Archdiocese of Marseille (Latin: Archidioecesis Massiliensis; French: Archidiocèse de Marseille) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in France. The archepiscopal see is in the city of Marseille, and the diocese comprises the arrondissement of Marseille, a subdivision of the department of Bouches-du-Rhône in the Region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.

History

The Church of Marseille is said to have been erected in the first century by St. Lazarus, the young man mentioned in the Gospels who had been raised from the dead by Jesus Christ himself. His family migrated to Provence at some point after the Resurrection.

Revolution

The diocese of Marseille was abolished during the French Revolution, under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790). Its territory was subsumed into the new diocese, called the 'Bouches-du-Rhone', which was part of the Metropolitanate called the 'Metropole des Côtes de la Méditerranée (which included ten new 'departements'). The electors of 'Bouches-du-Rhone' met at Aix beginning on 19 February 1791, and on 23 February elected Abbé Charles Benoît Roux, curé of Eyragues near Arles. He was consecrated in Paris by Constitutional Bishops Gobel, Miroudot and Gouttes. He very much enjoyed the social life of Marseille, but after the execution of Louis XVI on 21 January 1793, Roux joined the counter-revolutionaries. When Marseille was occupied by troops of the Convention, he fled to Aix. He was arrested and imprisoned on 20 September; he was taken to Marseille, where he faced a tribunal of the Revolution which condemned him to death. He was executed on 5 April 1794.

An archdiocese

The diocese was raised to the level of an Archdiocese on 31 January 1948 by Pope Pius XII. The suffragans of the archdiocese are: the Archdiocese of Aix, the Diocese of Ajaccio, the Archdiocese of Avignon, the Diocese of Digne, the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon, the Diocese of Gap, and the Diocese of Nice.

In recent times the Archdiocese of Marseille has suffered from significant shortage of priests, despite having a reported Catholic population of over 700,000 not a single priest was ordained in 2018 or 2019.

Bishops and Archbishops of Marseille

to 1000

1000–1500

1500 to 1700

1700 to 1948

Archbishops of Marseille since 1948

• Marc-Armand Lallier (28 September 1956 – 26 August 1966 )
• Georges Jacquot (1 November 1966 – 25 September 1970 )
• Cardinal Roger Etchegaray (22 December 1970 – 13 April 1985 )
• Cardinal Robert Coffy (13 April 1985 – 22 April 1995 )
• Cardinal Bernard Panafieu (22 April 1995 – 12 May 2006 )
• Georges Pontier (12 May 2006 – 8 August 2019)
• Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline (8 August 2019 –)

See also

• Catholic Church in France
• Église Saint-Joseph (Marseille)
• List of Catholic dioceses in France