In memory of Saint Victor in Marseille were founded two monasteries, male and female, were both established by the founder John Cassian in the early fifth century.

Victor of Marseilles lived in the III century and was executed by order of the Emperor Maximian for refusing to participate in pagan sacrifices. The monasteries were built on the burial of Victor and several other martyrs for the faith. The monastery of Saint-Victor in Marseille is one of the oldest on the territory of modern France, together with the Abbey of Marmoutier in tours (III century, the founder of Martin of tours) and the Lérins (beginning of V century founder of the Holy Honorat).

In the IX century monastery, the former residence of the bishops of Marseille, was looted during the attacks of the Saracens, and the convent was destroyed and could not later be restored. The monastery was re-built in the late tenth century by order of Bishop Onorato II. At this time, the Church was built, which survived until the present time. In the second half of the fourteenth century the Abbot Guillaume Grimoard (who later became Pope urban V) expanded the Church building and it was surrounded by a fortress wall.

During the great French revolution, the Abbey was ransacked, and its premises were converted into a granary, prison and barracks. At the beginning of the XIX century in the Church again began to hold worship services, and several decades later the whole complex of the Abbey of Saint-Victor was given the status of national historic landmark. Restoration of the remaining buildings of the monastery began only after a hundred years, in the second half of the twentieth century.

Of the features and relics of the Church it is worth noting a white marble altar of the V century, the statue of St. Victor, the body of the mid-nineteenth century, subterranean crypt with the tombs of the bishops, which houses one of the main values – the statue of the Black Madonna. From the crypt in the Church, this image is only raised during the celebration of Candlemas. In addition, in the Abbey houses a collection of sarcophagi, which are recognized as specimens of early Christian art. Once the monastery had a large library, but it was lost in the sixteenth century, preserved only in the library directory.