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The Church of France, sometimes called the "eldest daughter of the Church" owing to its early and unbroken communion (second century) with the bishop of Rome, is part of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church. The French church is under the spiritual leadership of the Pope, curia in Rome, and the Conference of French bishops. It is estimated that 60% of France's population are Catholic, though much fewer are regular churchgoers[1]. The church is organised into 98 dioceses, served by 20,523 priests.[2] It takes pride in some of the most beautiful churches in all of Christianity, including Notre Dame de Paris, Chartres Cathedral, Reims Cathedral, and Basilique du Sacre-Coeur, Eglise de la Madeleine, and Amiens Cathedral. Its shrine, Lourdes, is visited by 5 million pilgrims yearly. Some of its most famous saints include St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Irenaeus, St. John Vianney the Cure of Ars, St. Joan of Arc, St. Bernadette, Louis IX of France, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux. According to long-standing tradition, Mary, Martha, Lazarus and some companions, who were expelled by persecutions from the Holy Land, traversed the Mediterranean in a frail boat with neither rudder nor mast and landed at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer near Arles. Provençal tradition names Lazarus as the first bishop of Marseille, while Martha purportedly went on to tame a terrible beast in nearby Tarascon. Pilgrims visited their tombs at the abbey of Vézelay in Burgundy. In the Abbey of the Trinity at Vendôme, a phylactery was said to contain a tear shed by Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus. The cathedral of Autun, not far away, is dedicated to Lazarus as Saint Lazaire. The first written records of Christians in France date from the second century when Irenaeus detailed the deaths of ninety-year old bishop Pothinus of Lugdunum (Lyon) and other martyrs of the 177 persecution in Lyon.
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