MARSEILLES

Marseilles is the chief seaport of France on the Mediterranean; capital of Bouches-du-Rhône department; and since 1948 seat of an archbishopric (Massiliensis ) immediately subject to the Holy See.

City. Founded c. 600 b.c. by a Greek colony from Phocaea and taken by Julius Caesar in 49 b.c., it was a Gallo-Roman civitas occupied by Visigoths (480), Burgundians, and theodoric the great (507–537), and finally ceded to the Frankish kingdom. In 879 it was incorporated into the kingdom of Boso, later the kingdom of Arles. In feudal times it was divided among the seigneuries of the bishop, viscount, and Abbey of Saint-Victor. Louis of Anjou conquered it (1246), and Louis XI annexed it to the crown of France (1486). Rebuilding in the 17th century increased its area from 161 to 482 acres. Trade with the Levant made it rich, and in the 19th century it became an industrial city and France's main port.

Marseilles must have known Christianity early through its contact with the East, but its first bishop was not lazarus, risen from the dead in the Gospels, as 12th-century legends say (see aix). A 2d-century inscription seems to be its oldest relic of Christianity. It probably had a bishop in the 3d century, but Oresius at the Council of Arles (314) is the first-known bishop. Marseilles had several famous priests and religious c. 400, including salvian and John cassian, who founded there c. 415 the oldest and most famous monastery in Gaul, saint-victor, through which Eastern spirituality entered the West. The writer gennadius died there c. 500.

Saracen raids and the establishment of a Saracen military colony on the coast of Provence ruined Marseilles. During the obscure period from the 6th to the 10th century, the bishops are said to have left the city for the Abbey of Saint-Victor; at least they administered the abbey's goods. Bishop and viscount divided the city c. 1069, and the walled episcopal part became a fortress. The Cathedral of Notre-Dame-la-Majeure, outside the walls from the 6th century (almost the only such instance known), was rebuilt c. 1150 in Romanesque within the bishop's quarter. In 1257 the bishop had to cede his seigneurial rights over the city to Charles of Anjou, but in 1275 he still regarded himself as a subject of the emperor.

As a military port, Marseilles was a center of galley slaves. St. vincent de paul performed a mission of charity among them (1622) and contributed to a hospital founded for them (1643). The 19th century brought a profound change in the religious life of the city. Napoleon's fall was regarded as a blessing; his continental system had ruined trade. The city became legitimist, afire with a traditional and exuberant Catholicism. Caulkers and stevedores formed brotherhoods; there were penitents, and a mission in 1820 had great success. The episcopacies of the Mazenods (1823–37, 1837–61) were conservative, after the Old Regime. Then the population increased, and a new bourgeoisie, less faithful, arose; but the masses kept their faith, however little they practiced it (12 to 15 percent in 1953).

Archdiocese. From the 4th century Marseilles, the chief Greek colony in Provence, acted like a metropolitan. Its bishop created the Diocese of Nice, another Greek colony but not a Roman civitas; installed a bishop in Toulon; and then in the 5th century tried to do the same in two nearby villages, Cithariste and Garguier, dependent on the civitas of arles but cared for by Marseilles. Arles protested this invasion of its rights, and the papacy intervened. Marseilles had to yield, but these quarrels filled the whole episcopacy of Proculus (380–428), who at the Council of Turin (398) secured recognition of himself, for life, as a metropolitan (of Narbonensis II ?). Pope Zosimus, however, withdrew the rights and finally forbade him to exercise his episcopal functions (417–418). But Proculus did as he wished and died (428) in the peaceful possession of his see. The incident shows Rome's wish to judge as a final court of appeal and to fix metropolitan boundaries according to civil provinces. Its metropolitanate ended, Marseilles had to content itself with being a suffragan of Arles. It was the only diocese in Gaul to be almost entirely urban.

Marseilles' bishops include: Honoratus I (d.c. 500), who wrote a vita of St. hilary of arles; the doubtful St. Cannas; St. Theodore (566–591), who was involved in the intrigues and quarrels of Frankish kings; William Sudre (1361–66), cardinal legate of Urban V; Philip Cabassole

(1366–68), who performed many missions for the popes of Avignon and was patriarch of Jerusalem, cardinal, rector of the county of Venaissin, and the friend and patron of petrarch; the Oratorian Jean-Baptiste Gault (1642–43), who in his four months in Marseilles made a lasting impression by his active and personal charity to galley slaves and by his care to restore the holiness of the priestly life; and Henri de belsunce (1709–55), a converted Protestant and adversary of the Jansenists, whose heroic charity during the plague of 1720 and 1721 was marked by his consecration of the city to the Sacred Heart and who never left his diocese, of which he wrote a history. Suppressed as a suffragan of Arles by the concordat of 1801, the see was restored in 1822 as a suffragan of Aix with its present borders (250 square miles).

Bernard, abbot of Saint-Victor (1065–79), was the legate of Gregory VII to the Diet of Forcheim (1077). St. elzÉar of sabran (1286–1323) and his wife St. Delphine (1284–1360) were canonized by their nephew Urban V in 1369. Several modern programs for the education of youth prospered under the direction of priests [Fathers Allemand (1772–1836) and Caire]. Father Timon-David (1823–91) from 1847 to his death inspired the Work of Youth for the Working Class with the need for a deeply Christian life. The Work, which educated 15,000 children, had 17 affiliates during his lifetime.

Marseilles' monuments include Saint-Victor (11th century), the old cathedral (12th–15th century), and the new Byzantine style cathedral (1852–93). Its great shrine is the Romanesque Notre-Dame de la Garde (1214) on a hill overlooking the city. There are pilgrimages to Notre-Dame du Château, to Allauch, to Notre-Dame de Tous-saint, and to Ste.-Marthe.

Bibliography: albanÈs and chevalier, Gallia christiana novi ssima: Marseilles (Valence 1899). Les Bouches-du-Rhône: Encyclopédie départementale, 17 v. (Marseilles 1913–37). p. broutin, La Réforme pastorale en France au XVII ^e siècle, 2 v. (Tournai 1956). j. b. duroselle, Les Débuts du catholicisme social en France (1822–1870) (Paris 1951). j. leflon, Eugène de Mazenod, Bishop of Marseilles, Founder of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, tr. f. d. flanagan (New York 1961–), with recent bibliog. l. h. labande, "L'Église de Marseille et l'abbaye de Saint-Victor à l'époque Carolingienne," in Mélanges F. Lot (Paris 1925) 307–329. h. leclercq, Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, ed. f. cabrol, h. leclercq, and h. i. marrou, 15 v. (Paris 1907–53) 10.2:2204–93; 8.2:2044–86. l. gros, La Pratique religieuse dans le Diocese de Marseille (Marseilles 1954). o. engels and l. voekl, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65); 7:107–108. Annuario Pontificio (1965) 265.

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