Ancient Diocese of Tarentaise

Legend relates that the Centrones were evangelized in the fifth century by James the Assyrian, secretary to Honoratus, Archbishop of Arles.

A plea was brought before the Council of Frankfort (794) against the decision of Leo I that had been confirmed by Popes Symmachus and Gregory the Great.

Leo III partly acceded to this plea, and made Darantasia a metropolis with three suffragans, Aosta, Sitten (Sion in French), and Maurienne, but maintained the primacy of Vienne.

In 1825 a diocese was re-established at Moutiers, suffragan of Chambéry, and was maintained in 1860 in virtue of a special clause in the treaty ceding Savoy to France.

Among the archbishops of Moutiers in Tarentaise may be mentioned: As natives of the diocese may be mentioned: Pope Nicholas II (1059), born at Chevron-Villette of the family of the lords of Miolans; Pierre d'Aigueblanche, who in 1240 became Archbishop of Hereford in England, and for twenty-five years was councillor and minister to Henry III of England; Blessed Peter of Tarentaise, who became pope in 1276 under the name of Innocent V. The chief pilgrimages of the diocese are: Notre Dame de Briançon, which dates from the victory over the Saracens in the tenth century; kings Francis I of France and Henry IV of France visited this shrine; Notre Dame des Vernettes, at Peisey, created in the eighteenth century near a miraculous fountain; Notre Dame de la Vie at St. Martin de Belleville; Notre Dame de Beaufort; St. Anne at Villette dating from 1248.

Moûtiers Cathedral , see of the Diocese of Tarentaise.