Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution
[6][7][8][9][10] In 18th-century France, the vast majority of the population adhered to the Catholic Church, the only religion officially allowed in the kingdom since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.
[12] Since the Church kept the registry of births, deaths, and marriages and was the only institution that provided hospitals and education in most parts of the country, it influenced all citizens.
These borders can be determined only by the law.Article X – No one may be disturbed for his opinions, even religious ones, provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law.On 10 October 1789, the National Constituent Assembly seized the properties and land held by the Catholic Church and decided to sell them to fund the assignat Revolutionary currency.
On 12 July 1790, the assembly passed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy that subordinated the Catholic Church in France to the French government.
The dechristianization campaign can be seen as the logical extension[16] of the materialist philosophies of some leaders of the Enlightenment such as Voltaire, while for others with more prosaic concerns it provided an opportunity to unleash resentments against the Catholic Church (in the spirit of conventional anti-clericalism) and its clergy.
In July 1790, the National Constituent Assembly published the Civil Constitution of the Clergy that stripped clerics of their special rights—the clergy were to be made employees of the state, elected by their parish or bishopric, and the number of bishoprics was to be reduced—and required all priests and bishops to swear an oath of fidelity to the new order or face dismissal, deportation or death.
French priests had to receive Papal approval to sign such an oath, and Pius VI spent almost eight months deliberating on the issue.
An ever-increasing view that the Church was a counter-revolutionary force exacerbated the social and economic grievances and violence erupted in towns and cities across France.
[21] Anti-clerical parades were held, and the Archbishop of Paris, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel, was forced to resign his duties and made to replace his mitre with the red "Cap of Liberty".
Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety denounced the dechristianizers as foreign enemies of the Revolution, and established their own new religion.
[24][23] Just six weeks before his arrest, on 8 June 1794, the still-powerful Robespierre personally led a vast procession through Paris to the Tuileries garden in a ceremony to inaugurate the new faith.
[19] By early 1795, a return to some form of religion-based faith was beginning to take shape and a law passed on 21 February 1795 legalized public worship, albeit with strict limitations.
Persecution only worsened after the French army led by General Louis Alexandre Berthier captured Rome in early 1798, declared a new Roman Republic, and also imprisoned Pope Pius VI, who would die in captivity in Valence, France in August 1799.
However, after Napoleon seized control of the government in late 1799, France entered into year-long negotiations with new Pope Pius VII, resulting in the Concordat of 1801.
[1] Victims of revolutionary violence, whether religious or not, were popularly treated as Christian martyrs, and the places where they were killed became pilgrimage destinations.
