The Abbey of Saint-Victor is a former abbey that was founded during the late Roman period in Marseille in the south of France, named after the local soldier saint and martyr, Victor of Marseilles. History The crypts of the abbey contains artefacts indicating the presence of a quarry that was active during the Greek period and later became a necropolis from 2 BC onward until Christian times. In 415, Christian monk and theologian John Cassian, having come from the monasteries of Egypt, founded two monasteries at Marseille — the Abbey of Saint Victor for men in the south of the Vieux-Port, as well as the Abbey of Saint Sauveur the other for women in the south of Place de Lenche. The Abbey of Saint Victor was later affected during the fifth century by the Semipelagian heresy, which began with some of Cassian's writings. Both monasteries suffered from invasions by the Vikings and Saracens, and were destroyed in 838 by a Saracen fleet, when the then-abbess Saint Eusebia was also martyred with 39 nuns. In 923, the Abbey of Saint-Victor was destroyed again by the Saracens. In 977, monastic life was restored in the abbey under the Rule of Saint Benedict through the efforts of Bishop Honorat and its first Benedictine abbot Saint Wiffred. It recovered quickly, and from the middle of the 11th century its abbots were requested to restore religious life in the surrounding monasteries that had become decadent. Saint Isarn (d. 1048), a Catalan monk and successor as abbot to Wiffred, began construction work in 1020, building the first upper church, tower and altar. Isarn was instrumental by his intercession with Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Barcelona, in obtaining the release from Moorish captivity of the monks of Lérins Abbey. Blessed Bernard, abbot of St. Victor from 1064 to 1079, was one of the two ambassadors delegated by Pope Gregory VII to the Diet of Forchheim, where the German princes deposed Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor. He was seized by one of the partisans of Henry IV and passed several months in prison. Gregory VII also sent him as legate to Spain and in reward for his services exempted St. Victor's from all jurisdiction other than that of the Holy See. The abbey long retained contact with the princes of Spain and Sardinia and even owned property in Syria. The polyptych of Saint Victor, compiled in 814, the