Saint-Claude Cathedral

Saint-Claude Cathedral (Cathédrale Saint-Claude de Saint-Claude) is a Roman Catholic cathedral, and a national monument of France, located in the town of Saint-Claude. The town was originally named Saint-Oyand or Saint-Oyend after Saint Eugendus, in whose honour an abbey was established here, bearing his name. In 687 Saint Claudius resigned as Bishop of Besançon and became the twelfth abbot of St. Oyand's Abbey. After he died, in 696, his grave became a very popular pilgrimage centre, to the extent that by the thirteenth century, the name "Saint-Claude" had superseded that of "Saint-Oyand".^[1]

The Bishopric of Saint-Claude was created in 1742, out of the parishes in the care of the ancient Condat Abbey, established in the 5th century, around which the town of Saint-Claude had grown up. The abbey church, built in the 15th century, became the cathedral.