The Diocese of Autun (–Chalon-sur-Saône–Mâcon–Cluny) (Latin: Diocesis Aeduensis, Dioecesis Augustodunensis (–Cabillonensis–Matisconensis–Cluniacensis); French: Diocèse d'Autun (–Chalon-sur-Saône–Mâcon–Cluny)), more simply known as the Diocese of Autun, is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in France. The diocese comprises the entire Department of Saone et Loire, in the Region of Bourgogne.
The diocese was suffragan to the Archdiocese of Lyon under the Ancien Régime, and the Bishop of Autun held the post of Vicar of the Archbishop.This was confirmed by Pope Lucius III in a bull of 21 March 1143 as an old privilege of Bishop Humbert de Baugé: The bishopric of Chalon-sur-Saône (since Roman times) and (early medieval) bishopric of Mâcon, also suffragans of Lyon, were united to Autun after the French Revolution by the Concordat signed by First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII.As a child, in 1779 Napoleon had studied at the preparatory school of Autun. Sevestre, p. 33 n. 1. For a short time, from 1802 to 1822, the enlarged diocese of Autun was suffragan to the Archbishop of Besançon. In 1822, however, Autun was again subject to the Archbishop of Lyon. The diocese of Autun is now, since 8 December 2002, suffragan to the Archbishop of Dijon.David M. Cheney, Catholic-Hierarchy: Archdiocese of Dijon The current bishop of Autun is Benoît Rivière.
History
Christian teaching reached Autun at a very early period, as is known from a funeral inscription, in classical Greek, of a certain Pectorius which dates from the 3rd century.The stone was found in 1839 in the cemetery of St. Peter l'Estrier at Autun, and makes reference to baptism and the Holy Eucharist.
Local recensions of the "Passion" of St. Symphorianus of Autun tell the story that, on the eve of the persecution of Septimius Severus, St. Polycarp assigned to Irenaeus two priests and a deacon (Benignus, Andochius and Thyrsus), all three of whom departed for Autun. St. Benignus went on to Langres, while the others remained at Autun. According to this legendary cycle, which dates from about the first half of the 6th century, it was not then believed at Autun that the city was an episcopal see in the time of St. Irenaeus (c. 140–211).
Another tradition current at Autun, however, names St. Amator as its first bishop and places his episcopacy about 250.Jean Berthollet, "Questions gallo-romaines et du Haut Moyen Âge – La question des évêques. Le premier évêque d'Autun," in: Annales de Bourgogne, (1945), "Discussions et documents," pp. 38–44; p. 42: "C'est dans le Gallia Christiana de Claude Robert, prêtre de Langres, que se trouve pour la première fois, semble-t-il, l'affirmation qu'Amateur fut le premier évêque d'Autun, et qu'entre lui et Rétice il dut y en avoir eu plusieurs, dont l'un nommé Martin, inconnu par ailleurs." The first bishop known to history, however, is Reticius,Berthollet considers Reticius to have been the first bishop of Autun (the Aeduans): "Bref, on ne trouve aucun désaccord, au contraire, entre la tradition eduenne et l'histoire, et il semble qu'on peut conclure fermement que Rétice a été le premier évêque d'Autun au début du IVe siècle." an ecclesiastical writer and contemporary of the Emperor Constantine I (306–337).
Early bishops Euphronius, who became Bishop of Autun, is credited with the foundation of the first monastic house at Autun in 421, the Priory of S. Symphorien. In 1792 and 1793 the buildings were sold for the stone material and demolished. In 1993 the remains were classified as an historical monument by the French Government.Monumentum Carte des Monuments Historiques français, Ancienne abbaye Saint-Symphorien à Autun In 452, Bishop Euphronius observed a comet, and sent a description of the event to Count Agrippinus, Magister Militum. Bishop Euphronius and Bishop Patiens were highly praised by Sidonius Apollinaris, son-in-law of the Emperor Avitus and Bishop of Clermont Ferrand, for conducting the election of a bishop of Chalons in a particularly upright fashion, without simony, aristocratic favoritism, or submission to the popular will.Epistles IV. 25: In 472 Bishop Sidonius invited Bishop Euphronius to Bourges for the election of Sidonius' Metropolitan.
Beginning in 599, the Bishop of Autun enjoyed until the late 20th century the right of wearing the pallium of a metropolitan bishop, in virtue of a privilege granted to Bishop Syagrius and his See by Pope Gregory I (590–604).Pope Gregory I, Epistulae IX. 222 (July 599). Autun was to be a metropolis throughout its own locality, with second place in Gaul after Lugdunum....ut metropolis suo per omnia loco et honore servato ecclesia civitatis Augustodunis, cui omnipotens Deus praeeesse te voluit, post Lugdunensem ecclesiam esse debeat et hunc sibi locum ad ordinem ex nostra auctoritatis indulgentia vindicare. Gregory was very eager to have a church council in France to stamp out the vice of simony, and he appealed to Queen Brunhilda to use her influence to organize it; he especially recommended Bishop Syagrius of Autun to the Queen as his most reliable agent.Pope Gregory I, Epistulae IX. 213 (July 599).
During the Merovingian era Autun was a politically important diocese. Two Bishops figured prominently in political affairs: Syagrius of Autun, bishop during the second half of the 6th century, a contemporary of Germanus, bishop of Paris, who was a native of Autun; and Leodegar (St. Léger), bishop from 663 to 680, who came into conflict with Ebroin, Mayor of the Palace of Neustria, and was put to death by order of Theoderic III.
The Abbey of St. Martin was founded in 602 by Queen Brunhilda of Austrasia, and it was there that her remains were interred – the deposed monarch having been repeatedly racked for three days, torn apart by four horses, and then burnt on a pyre. By the mid-tenth century, however, the abbey was no longer in operation. In 949 the Burgundian Counts Giselbert and Hugh imported monks from Cluny to reform the moribund monastery, and to elect their own abbot. When the abbey was destroyed in 1793, Brunhilda's sarcophagus was removed, and it is now in the Musée Lapidaire in Avignon.
Councils of Autun The first council was held in 663, 670, or 677, under Bishop Leodegarius, for the purpose of regulating the discipline of the Benedictine monasteries. Monks were forbidden to have 'special friends' (compatres), or to have woman friends, or to be about in towns. The council ordered all ecclesiastics to learn by heart the Apostles Creed and the Athanasian Creed.J. D. Mansi (ed.), Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio Tomus undecimus (11) (Florence 1765), pp. 123–128. For the creeds, p. 125. This seems to be the earliest mention of the Athanasian Creed in France. The 19th century Benedictine Cardinal Pitra says in his "Histoire de St. Léger" that this canon may have been directed against Monothelitism, then seeking entrance into the Gallican churches, but already condemned in the Athenasian Creed. The Rule of St. Benedict was also prescribed as the normal monastic code.
In a Council of 1065, Saint Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, along with four bishops, accomplished the reconciliation of Robert I, Duke of Burgundy, with Hagano the Bishop of Autun.J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio Tomus XIX (Venice 1775), pp. 1039–1040.
In 1077 Hugues, Bishop of Die held a council at Autun, by order of Pope Gregory VII. The council deposed Manasses, Archbishop of Reims, for simony and usurpation of the see, and reproved other bishops for absence from the council.J. D. Mansi (ed.), Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio Tomus vigesimus (20) (Florence 1765), pp. 489–492. In 1094 Hugues, by then Archbishop of Lyon, and thirty-three other bishops meeting at Autun renewed the excommunication of Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, the Antipope Guibert and their partisans, and also that of King Philip of France, guilty of bigamy. Simony, ecclesiastical disorders, and monastic usurpations provoked other decrees, only one of which is extant, forbidding the monks to induce the canons to enter monasteries.Mansi, Tomus vigesimus, pp. 799–800.
There was also a Council in Autun in October 1094.J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio Tomus XX (Venice 1775), pp. 799–802.
In the 1150s a quarrel over jurisdiction and independence broke out between Bishop Henri de Bourgogne of Autun and Abbot Reginald of Flavigny. The quarrel became so serious that it reached the royal court, and continued there for some time. Finally, in 1160, King Louis VII ruled that his predecessors had infeudated the Bishops of Autun with the lands of Flavigny,The grant had already been made in the 9th century by Charles the Simple, and was confirmed by Pope John VIII: Gagnarre, p. 74. and that the Abbot of Flavigny was subinfeudated to the Bishops of Autun. The ruling scarcely settled the quarrel, however, which dragged on throughout the rest of the century, requiring repeated royal intervention; conflicts appear repeatedly in the thirteenth century as well.
Following the beginning of the Great Schism in 1378, the bishops of Autun were appointed, as they had been throughout the fourteenth century, by the Avignon pope, now Clement VII. After the Concordat of 1516 between Francis I and Leo X, however, the King of France held the right to appoint bishops in France, with the consent of the pope. This arrangement persisted until the French Revolution.
Gabriel de Roquette was bishop from 1666 till 1702, through most of the reign of Louis XIV. According to the Duc de Saint-Simon, he was the model for the character "Tartuffe" in Molière's play Tartuffe.
The devotion to the Sacred Heart originated in the Visitation Convent at Paray-le-Monial, founded in 1644, and now the object of frequent pilgrimages. Its promoter was Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque, a cloistered nun who claimed to have visions between 1673 and 1675, in which Jesus personally taught her the devotion.M.J. Bernadot, "Le developpement historique de la devotion au Sacre- Coeur," La Vie spirituelle 2 (1920): 193–215.
Revolution and aftermath