Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dijon - History

History

Between the years 506 and 540 it was revealed to Gregory, Bishop of Langres, an ancestor of Gregory of Tours, that a tomb which the piety of the peasants led them to visit contained the remains of St. Benignus. He had a large basilica erected over it, and soon travellers from Italy brought him the acts of this saint's martyrdom. These acts are part of a collection of documents according to which Burgundy was evangelized in the 2nd century by St. Benignus, an Asiatic priest and the disciple of St. Polycarp, assisted by two ecclesiastics, Andochius and Thyrsus. The good work is said to have prospered at Autun, where it received valuable support from the youthful Symphorianus; at Saulieu where Andochius and Thyrsus had established themselves; at Langres where the three brothers, Speusippus, Eleusippus, and Meleusippus, were baptized, and finally at Dijon. In the meantime the persecution of Marcus Aurelius broke out, and St. Benignus and his companions were put to death.

The doubts first raised by Boulliau and Tillemont in the 17th century concerning the authenticity of these acts seem justified by the conclusions of G. Van Hooff and Louis Duchesne, according to which the Acts of St. Benignus and the martyrdom of the three brothers of Langres, on which the aforesaid traditions are based, are apocryphal and copied from Cappadocian legends. This controversy, however, does not alter the fact that before the 5th century a saint named Benignus was venerated by the Christians of Dijon; nor does it dim the splendour of the saint's miracles, as related by Gregory of Tours and by the Book of the Miracles of St. Benignus. Animated polemics arose among the Catholic scholars of France than the apostolate of St. Benignus.

Under the Merovingians and Carolingians, most of the bishops of Langres resided at Dijon, e.g. St. Urbanus (5th century), St. Gregory, and St. Tetricus (6th century), who were buried there. When, in 1016, Lambert, Bishop of Langres, ceded the seigniory and county of Dijon to King Robert of France, the Bishops of Langres made Langres their place of residence.

In 1731, Pope Clement XII made Dijon a bishopric. The Abbey of Saint-Etienne of Dijon (5th century) long had a regular chapter that observed the Rule of St. Augustine; it was given over to secular canons by Pope Paul V in 1611, and Pope Clement XI made its church the cathedral of Dijon; during the Revolution it was transformed into a forage storehouse. The abbatial church of Saint-Bénigne became the cathedral of Dijon early in the 19th century.

Cardinal Lecot, later Archbishop of Bordeaux, was Bishop of Dijon from 1886 to 1890. Pope Pius X's request in 1904 for the resignation of Monseigneur Le Nordez, Bishop of Dijon since 1899, was one of the incidents which led to the rupture of relations between France and the Holy See.