ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The Roman Catholic Church in France (fr. Église catholique, correct, but rarely used Église catholique romaine) is the numerically largest denomination in the country.
The Catholic Church has also played a significant cultural and political role in the history of France.

Catholics in France
In France, about 40,000,000 people professed themselves to the Catholic Church in 2012. Due to very different survey results, the population share can be only roughly between 54 %
and 66% are estimated.

Structure

The Roman Catholic Church is subject to canon law on French territory to 23 archdioceses and 74 dioceses according to Latin rite. The central organ of the French bishops is the French Bishops’ Conference.
Particular features are the Galician Ordinariat and the territorial prelature. The Greek-Catholic Christians of Armenian and Ukrainian origin who are native to France and united with the Roman Catholic Church are pastorally cared for in an Armenian eparchy and a Ukrainian apostolic exarchate.

History

Beginnings of Christianity in France
According to legend, Lazarus of Bethany was the first Christian bishop of Marseille in the first century. In fact, the relics attributed to Saint Lazarus (originally from Cyprus) were brought to Marseille by crusaders only in 1204. In 1146 the relics were transferred to the cathedral of Autun, where they are still kept today. The Church Father Irenaeus of Lyon reports on Christian persecutions and the martyrdom of his predecessor Pothinus in 177 in the then Gallo-Roman Lugdunum (now Lyon). Despite occasional persecutions, Christianity was able to spread further and further in the Roman province of Gaul until it received permanent state tolerance in 313 under Emperor Constantine the Great with the so-called Milan agreement. Under Theodosius I († 395), Christianity was effectively elevated to the state religion of the Roman Empire. Missionaries and bishops such as St. Martin of Tours, who is now considered the patron saint of France, played a significant part in the spread. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the territory of present-day France was taken over by the Germanic peoples of the Franks (in the northeast), the Visigoths (in the southwest) and the Burgundians (in the southeast). As the only one of the larger Germanic peoples of the migration period, the Franks adopted the Catholic faith (baptism of the Merovingian king Chlodwig I in about 500 AD), while the other Germanic peoples converted to the Arian faith. Thus Chlodwig secured the support of the dominant Christian church. The close connection between now Roman Catholic (i.e. with Dominan) was sealed