Roman Catholic Diocese of Angoulême


The Roman Catholic Diocese of Angoulême is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. Originally erected in the 3rd century, the episcopal see is the Angoulême Cathedral. Comprising the département of the Charente, the diocese had traditionally been suffragan to the Archbishopric of Bordeaux, under the old régime as well as under the Concordat, but since 2002 is suffragan to the Archdiocese of Poitiers.
In 2015, in the Diocese of Angoulême there was one priest for every 3,680 Catholics.

History

Its first bishop was Ausonius, a disciple, it is said, of St. Martial, concerning whom we have two historical authorities: St. Gregory of Tours, who held that St. Martial preached the gospel in Limoges about the year 250, and the Limousin traditions, transmitted or invented by the chronicler Adhémar de Chabannes, who maintained that St. Martial was the immediate disciple of St. Peter. According to the latter opinion St. Ausonius was a bishop of the first century; according to the former, of the third century. At least one modern historian believes it likely that Ausonius lived even later, in the 4th century. His cult, however, does not appear until the end of the tenth century.
St. Salvius, honoured as a martyr at Valenciennes, whom the Gallia Christiana makes a Bishop of Angoulême, was undoubtedly only a missionary bishop of the eighth century. In the list of the Bishops of Angoulême is found the name of the poet Octavien de St. Gelais.
The religious monuments of the province of Angoumois are remarkable for their admirable Romano-Byzantine façades. The most beautiful of them is St. Peter's Cathedral at Angoulême. The original cathedral was dedicated to Saint Saturninus, but it was destroyed by the Arian Visigoths. After the defeat of Alaric II in 507, King Clovis had his chaplain Aptonius made bishop and had the cathedral rebuilt and named in honor of Saint Peter. It was consecrated around 570, according to tradition by Saint Germain, Bishop of Paris. The cathedral was ravaged again, this time by the Normans, in the middle of the ninth century. It was rebuilt by Bishop Grimoard and dedicated in 1017. The present edifice is the work of Bishop Gérard II de Blaye, the Papal Legate, ca. 1109–1120. The Cathedral was administered by a Chapter, composed of a Dean, the Archdeacon, the Treasurer, and twenty-one Canons. There were also a Cantor and Scholasticus, but they did not have a vote in Chapter unless they were also Canons.
The memory of a wealthy and famous Augustinian abbey, founded in 1122, is kept alive by its ruins at Couronne, near Angoulême.
In 1236, the Jewish community of Angouleme, along with those in Anjou, Poitou, and Bordeaux, was attacked by crusaders. 500 Jews from these communities chose conversion and over 3000 were massacred. Pope Gregory IX, who originally had called the crusade, was outraged about this brutality and criticized the clergy of the diocese of Angoulême for not preventing it.

Bishops of Angoulême

to 1000