Basilique Notre-Dame de Brebières

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Notre-Dame de Brebières Basilica is a minor Catholic basilica located in Albert (Somme), built in the late 19th century. Its original architecture makes it a major building of Picardia's religious heritage, classified as a historical monument.

Construction: Notre-Dame-de-Brebières has been one of the high places of Marian worship in Picardia since the 11th and 12th centuries. At the end of the 19th century, the pilgrimage experienced a renewed fervor with the whole of Marian devotion (as at Notre-Dame de La Salette and the shrine of Notre-Dame de Lourdes). The Basilica Notre-Dame de Brebières was built under the impulse of Anicet Godin, the parish priest-dean of Albert from 1882 to 1913. It replaced the parish church, built after the fire of 1660 and completed in 1705. It became too small to accommodate ever more faithful as a result of the development of the city during the industrial revolution, and it was decided to destroy the existing church and build a new one. In 1895, at the time of its inauguration, Pope Leo XIII conferred the honorary title of minor basilica on the new church. He specified in his pontifical bubble his...