Fonds DZ-AA - Archives of the Archdiocese of Algiers

During the Roman period, the present site of Algiers was occupied by the city of Icosium (seat of a bishopric) which depended on the province of Mauritania Caesarea whose capital was Cherchell. During the Ottoman period, the Lazarist Fathers successively occupied the office of vicar apostolic from 1650 to 1827, ensuring the service of the Christians, the prisons, the merchants and the consuls.

The Church regained a diocesan structure in 1838 with the creation of the bishopric of Algiers which covered all of Algeria until 1866, when it became an archdiocese with the creation of the two other dioceses of the North. After Monseigneur Dupuch (1846-1866) who was the interlocutor of the Emir Abdelkader, and Monseigneur Pavy (1846-1866) the builder of the Notre Dame d'Afrique basilica, Cardinal Lavigerie directed the diocese of Algiers from 1866 to 1892. Upon his arrival (1868) he founded the White Fathers and the White Sisters (1869).

The Diocese of Algiers currently includes fifty priests and religious, seventy-five nuns and a few thousand Christians with Mgr. Paul Desfarges, of French-Algerian nationality as Archbishop since 24 December 2016.

The diocese of Algiers includes the regions of Algiers, Medea and the eastern part of the Cheliff Valley, as well as the Greater Kabylie.