Roman Catholic Diocese of Sagone

The Diocese of Sagone was a Roman Catholic diocese in France, located in the city of Sagone, Corsica. In 1801, it was suppressed to the Archdiocese of Ajaccio.

The islands of Corsica, Sardina, and the Balearics suffered severely in the depradations of the Vandals in the second half of the fifth century. Appianu, the eponymous saint of the Cathedral of Sagone, is said to have died in exile. Archaeology indicates that only the inland town of Castellu in Upper Corse survived. There were no Corsican representatives at the Council of Carthage in 484. Belisarius appears to have done nothing for Corsica, and the Lombard invasions had a negative impact. It is only in the time of Pope Gregory I (590-604) that information becomes available. Having heard of the terrible state of Christianity on the island of Corsica, Gregory sent a bishop, a certain Leo, to the island, with the license to ordain priests and deacons in a diocese not his own, the diocese of Sagone. Gregory remarks that the diocese had been without a bishop for many years: ... Ecclesiam Saonensem ante annos plurimos, obejunte eius pontifice, omnino destitutam agnovimus. It is around this time that the oldest foundations of the church on whose ruins the cathedral which came to be dedicated to St. Appianu was begun in the twelfth century.

It is said that the Diocese of Sagone (Dioecesis Sagonensis) was established in AD 500. Ughelli states that Pope Paschal I (817-824), after the devastation of the island by the Saracens (Arabs), erected five bishoprics on the island, Sagone among them.

In 1123, at a Lateran Council, Pope Calixtus II consecrated a bishop for the Church of Sagona, but unfortunately his name is not preserved. This anonymous bishop is the first person to whom one can point as a Bishop of Sagona. The Pope also decided definitively, with the council fathers agreeing, that the pope himself would consecrate all bishops on the island of Corsica, rather than favor the Genoese or the Pisitans.

In 1179 a bishop of Sagone, whose name is unfortunately not preserved, was present at the Lateran Council of Pope Alexander III and subscribed its decrees.

In 1284 the island of Corsica was conquered by Genoa, but, although the political life of the island was directed by the Genoese, the dioceses on the island continued to be suffragans of the Archdiocese of Pisa. As might be expected, however, the bishops who were elected tended to be Genoese or from places in the territory of the Republic of Genoa.

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