Early history A person named Martin is said to have evangelized
Artois and Arras, capital of the
Celtic Atrebates by 350
AD; however, these early
Christian communities did not survive the barbarian invasions of the
Roman Empire in the fifth century. At the beginning of the sixth century
Remigius,
Archbishop of Reims, placed in the See of Arras
St. Vedastus (St. Vaast) (d. c. 540), who had been the teacher of the Merovingian king
Clovis I after the victory of
Tolbiac. His successors,
Dominicus and Vedulphus, are also both venerated as saints. After the death of Vedulphus, the See of Arras was transferred to Cambrai, and it was not until 1093 that Arras again became a diocese.
Restoration in the 11th century Around 1093/94, the diocese of Arras was restored by splitting it from the diocese of Cambrai and
Lambert of Guines was elected as its first bishop. This split was initiated by the counts of Flanders, Robert I and his son Robert II, who intended to become less dependent on the Holy Roman Empire, and received the approval from pope Urban II. The greatest intellectual of Arras in the 12th century,
Clarembald of Arras, was first provost and then archdeacon of the diocese. At the time of the reform of the bishoprics of the
Netherlands in 1559, the diocese had 422 parishes. Its metropolitan was changed from Reims to Cambrai by
Pope Paul IV. Before the
French Revolution the Cathedral Chapter consisted of the Provost, the Dean, the Archdeacon of Arras (Artois), the Archdeacon of Ostrevant, the Treasurer, the Penitentiary, 40 canons and 52 chaplains. There were some 400 parishes and 12 rural deans. King
Philip II of Spain and
Pope Pius IV founded the University of Douai in 1562 as a weapon in the Counterreformation and the
French Wars of Religion. The Jesuits had a college at Douai, founded in 1599, and suppressed in 1762.
Abolition and restoration during the French Revolution During the
French Revolution the diocese of Arras was abolished and subsumed into a new diocese, the 'Pas de Calais', coterminous with the new 'Departement of the Pas-de-Calais', and a suffragan of the 'Metropole des Côtes de la Manche'. The clergy were required to swear and oath to the Constitution, and under the terms of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy a new bishop was to be elected by all the voters of the department. This placed them in schism with the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope. On 27 March 1791 the electors chose, on the fourth ballot, the curé of Saint-Nicolas-sur-les-Fossés at Arras, Pierre-Joseph Porion. In September 1801 First Consul Bonaparte abolished the Constitutional Church and signed a
Concordat with
Pope Pius VII which restored the Roman Catholic Church in France. The diocese of Arras was restored. Among the bishops of Arras were
Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, Councillor of the
emperor Charles V, Bishop of Arras from 1545 to 1562, later
Archbishop of Mechelen and
Viceroy of Naples;
François Richardot, a celebrated preacher, Bishop of Arras from 1562 to 1575; and Monseigneur Parisis (d. 1866), who figured prominently in the political assemblies of 1848. The current ratio of Catholics to priests is 4,168.5 to 1. ==Bishops==