Today is the feast of St Ireneus, one of the most influential of the early Fathers of the Church, and now declared a Doctor of the Church, and Bishop of Lyon in the late second century. His death, traditionally by martyrdom, although that is a somewhat disputed point, occurred circa 202. Wikipedia has an account of what is known of his life and a summary of his teaching in his one surviving work Against the Heresies at Irenaeus
His bishopric at Lyon developed into an Archbishopric and from 1079 it has held the title Primate of Gaul. This gave the Archbishop nominal oversight of the ecclesiastical provinces of Rouen, Tours and Sens, but no actual administrarive authority. In 1702 Rouen was detached, and as Primates of Gaul and of Normandy these two Archbishops are the only French ones to have such a status.
From 1032 to 1312 the Archbishops were rulers of the city, which was a major ecclesiastical and spiritual centre, not infrequently the residence of Popes and the place where two Councils of the Church were held in the thirteenth century.
The history of the diocese is set out by Wikipedia at Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lyon and of the cathedral of St John the Baptist at Lyon Cathedral
Lyon is renowned for retaining through many centuries its own distinctive liturgical rite. There is an introduction to this in the Catholic Encyclopaedia account of the diocese at CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Lyons
The New Liturgical Movement has had two detailed, illustrated posts about the Lyon Rite in Liturgical Notes on the Solemn Pontifical Mass of the Rite of Lyon (Part 1 of 2) and Liturgical Notes on the Solemn Pontifical Mass of the Rite of Lyon (Part 2 of 2)
Their website has also had a number of videos of recent celebrations of this liturgy. One example is at Video of Solemn Mass in the Rite of Lyon others can be found by searching their website.
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