France, Christianity in. Christianity seems to have been introduced into Gaul in the 2nd cent. by missionaries from Asia Minor. The Christian community at Lyons suffered
persecution in 177. A Gallic episcopate was established between
c.250 and 313; a synod of the W. Church at Arles in 314 included 14 Gallic bishops and the next century saw the definitive organization of the Gallo-Roman Church. Though the occupation of S. Gaul by
Arian Visigoths does not seem to have disrupted the lives of the Catholic bishops, the conversion of the Frankish king
Clovis to Catholicism and his conquest of Gaul opened the way for a close relationship between the Church and the secular rulers. Under
Pepin III, who secured the throne definitively in 751, his son
Charlemagne, and his successors, there was legislation touching all aspects of Church life. The Frankish Church was notable for its regularization of the liturgy, the development of ecclesiastical chant, and an influential revision of the
Vulgate text of the Bible. The close relationship of the Frankish rulers and the Papacy was expressed dramatically in the coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor in 800. The cooperation of Church and State continued after Hugh Capet in 987 succeeded the last Carolingian ruler in France. The
Investiture Contest saw no open clash with the Papacy over the king's claim to confer on bishops the
ring and crozier; two reforming Popes,
Urban II and
Callistus II, were Frenchmen; and France was the homeland of the
Crusades and of
Cluniac and
Cistercian monasticism. After the spread of the Albigensians in S. France, the Albigensian Crusades (1209–29) enabled the monarchy to assimilate Languedoc into the Frankish kingdom.
Under Philip IV (reigned 1285–1314) Papal power and prestige was damaged by the imprisonment of
Boniface VIII by Philip's agents in 1303. The election of
Clement V in 1305 was followed by the moving of the Papal court to
Avignon, within French territory. So far from being a French captivity of the Papacy, however, France was raided for benefices in the expansion of Papal ‘provisions’.
Gallicanism took from as Church Councils tried to deprive the Pope of his control over benefices and taxation as a means to end the
Great Schism of 1378.
The Concordat of
Bologna (1516), by conceding to the French Crown the right to nominate to major benefices, disposed her monarchs to seek accommodation rather than a break with Rome. It also dictated the (unsuccessful) strategy of J.
Calvin and T.
Beza, which aimed to capture the support of the Crown so that the whole Gallican Church could be transformed on Protestant principles. Until the adoption of the RC faith by
Henry IV in 1593 the
Huguenots hoped this might be achieved. They gained limited protection under the Edict of
Nantes (1598), but this was eroded and finally removed by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). Their numbers declined and RC Christianity was invigorated by post-Tridentine piety. Louis XIV (reigned 1643–1715) affirmed the power of the Crown not only against the Protestants but also against the Papacy, inducing the clergy to publish the
Gallican Articles in 1682. He also struck out against the
Jansenists, destroying their spiritual centre at
Port-Royal and encouraging the designs of the
Jesuits. Though religious practice was almost universal except in the towns, intellectually the Church could make only a halting reply to criticism (e.g. from
Voltaire and J. J.
Rousseau), and it was the target of
anticlericalism on account of its wealth. In the Revolution of 1789, Church property was sold,
tithe abolished, and the taking of monastic vows ended. The
Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) set up the
Constitutional Church. The
Concordat of 1801 (q.v.) ‘restored the altars’, increased the prestige of the Papacy, and weakened the Gallican spirit of the French clergy. From then
Ultramontanism became a force, moving towards its triumph at the First
Vatican Council (1870). In the 19th cent. Calvinism revived somewhat, though weakened by a split between orthodox, moderates, and liberals in 1872.
The identification of many Churchmen with the régime of Napoleon III and later proposals for a royalist restoration led politicians of the Third Republic to adopt anticlerical policies and various acts weakened the influence of the Church. In the early 20th cent. most religious orders were expelled from France and in 1905 the Church and State were separated. The State grant to the Church ceased and with it all recognition of the Church as an institution. During the First World War French clergy fought alongside the laity and the estrangement of many French people from the Church was diminished. Unobtrusively the religious orders returned and the interwar years were marked by moderation in the relations between the Church and State. Catholic scholarship flourished and remained vigorous for some years after the end of the Second World War, with French
Dominicians in Jerusalem producing the first scholarly Catholic translation of Scripture (1948–54; the ‘Jerusalem Bible’). The activities of worker-priests in the 1940s and 1950s were designed to counter the loss of the working-classes to the Church in the 19th cent. In 1984 Catholics were able to defeat plans of the Socialist Government to integrate Church schools into the State system, and in the 1980s the Church established two
broadcasting stations. In the late 1990s, a large majority of the population still described themselves as RC, but only some 7–8 per cent practised their religion.
