The Church of Marseille is said to have been erected in the first century by St. Lazarus, the young man mentioned in the Gospels who had been raised from the dead by Jesus Christ himself.

[3] The diocese of Marseille was abolished during the French Revolution, under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790).

He very much enjoyed the social life of Marseille, but after the execution of Louis XVI on 21 January 1793, Roux joined the counter-revolutionaries.

He was arrested and imprisoned on 20 September; he was taken to Marseille, where he faced a tribunal of the Revolution which condemned him to death.

[4] The diocese was raised to the level of an Archdiocese on 31 January 1948 by Pope Pius XII.