The Roman Catholic Diocese of Nice (Latin: Dioecesis Nicensis; French: Diocèse de Nice) is a diocese of the Latin Church of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The diocese comprises the Départment of Alpes-Maritimes. The diocese is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Marseille. History Earliest Times According to local tradition, Nice was evangelized by St. Barnabas, who had been sent by St. Paul, or else by St. Mary Magdalen, St. Martha, and St. Lazarus (who had been raised from the dead by Christ himself). St. Bassus, a martyr under Emperor Decius (249–251), is believed by some to have been the first Bishop of Nice. There is some evidence of an organized see of Nice existing in the year 314 A.D. in Roman Gallia Narbonensis, since the deacon Innocent and the exorcist Agapitus, clerics from Nice, attended the Council of Arles that year, possibly as delegates of the bishop. Mgr Louis Duchesne, however, pointed out that Nice was not a city (civitas) and did not have its own municipal administration. It was governed from the city of Marseille by a civic functionary called an episcopus ('overseer'). In 314, this situation still obtained, and the delegates sent to the Council of Nicaea are described as coming from the portus of Nice, not the civitas. It might be presumed, therefore, that they represented the chief civic administrator, the episcopus from Marseille. Hence in Duchesne's view, there was not yet an ecclesiastical superior in Nice called an episcopus. The first Bishop of Nice known by name is Amantius, who attended in person the Council of Aquileia in 381, as did also the bishop of Marseilles. Duchesne considers Amantius the first known bishop, rather than Bassus. Cimiez, a civitas near Nice, but in the province of Alpes Maritimae and indeed its largest town, is claimed to have had an episcopal see around 260, which may be the case, even though the early history of Christianity in Cimiez is probably fictitious. At any rate, the see was occupied in the mid-fifth century by St. Valerian, who was present at Church councils between 439 and 451. A rescript of Pope Leo I (440–461), issued after AD 450, joined the two dioceses of Nice and Cimiez into one. This union was later reversed by Pope Hilarius, but in 465 he reunited them at the demand of Bishop Ingenuus of Embrun, the Metropolitan of the Alpes Maritimae, who