Constitutional bishop

A Constitutional Bishop (French évêque Constitutionel ) was a bishop of the reorganized during the French Revolution the Catholic Church in France.

The dioceses of the constitutional bishops met the 1790 established departments. The constitutional bishops were mostly priests who were close to the ideas of the Gallican and the French Revolution. They were elected by cooperating clergy and faithful of their dioceses from that part of the French clergy, who had taken an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy ( 1790), and held office without the consent of the Pope. Rome regarded them as schismatics and abroad fled bishops of the ancien régime continued as the only legitimate owner of the French episcopal sees.

At the end of the reign of terror in 1794 officiated from the original 87, 59 constitutional bishops, in the fall of 1801 still 32 in 1797 and from June 20 to a stop on August 16, 1801, they performed in Paris at national councils together and stressed their independence from the Roman Curia. With the signing of the Concordat of 1801 by Napoleon and Cardinal Consalvi, representing Pope Pius VII, both the constitutional bishops and all 94 surviving bishops of the Ancien Régime were pressured into resignation. Among the latter is added 58, while 36 their resignations rejected initially. Also a part of the constitutional bishops sought his own diocese to maintain or continue to be used within the episcopate to be reorganized. In October 1801 resigned 49 constitutional bishops, all solemn and without guilt and without denial of their episcopal election. Twelve rekonziliationswillige bishops received their 1802 re- state order, but initially no papal documents. Their integration in the "new " Concordat episcopate was different in individual cases, but usually under considerable diplomatic efforts.

Known constitutional bishops:

  • Yves Marie Audrein, Bishop of the department of Finistère
  • Marc- Antoine Berdolet, Bishop of the department of Haut-Rhin, later Bishop of Aachen
  • Claude Debertier, Bishop of the Aveyron
  • Jean -Baptiste DEMANDRE, Bishop of the Doubs department
  • Charles -François Dorlodot, Bishop of the department of Mayenne
  • Louis -Alexandre de la Expilly Poipe, Bishop of the department of Finistère
  • Claude Fauchet, Bishop of the department of Calvados
  • Léonard Honoré Gay de Vernon, Bishop of the Haute -Vienne
  • Henri Grégoire, the abbé Grégoire, bishop of the department of Loir -et -Cher
  • Marc- Antoine Huguet, Bishop of the department of Creuse
  • Louis de Jarente Sénac d' Orgeval, Bishop in the Loiret
  • Antoine -Adrien Lamourette, Bishop of Rhône -et- Loire ( Lyon)
  • Jean -Claude Leblanc de Beaulieu, Bishop of Rouen, later Bishop of Soissons
  • Claude Le Coz, Bishop of the department of Ille -et -Vilaine, later Archbishop of Besançon
  • Jean -Baptiste Massieu, Bishop of the department of Oise
  • Guillaume Mauviel, Bishop of Saint- Domingue
  • Michel -Joseph de Pidoll, Bishop of the Sarthe
  • François- Ambroise Rodrigue, Bishop of the department of Vendée
  • Barthélemy- Jean -Baptiste Sanadon, Bishop of the department of Basses- Pyrénées
  • Jean -Baptiste Pierre Saurine, Bishop of the Landes region
  • Noël- Gabriel -Luce Villar, Bishop of the department of Mayenne
Ercole Consalvi Waiver Claude Fauchet (revolutionist) Jean Baptiste Joseph Gobel Saint-Domingue
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