Basilique Saint-Eutrope de Saintes

About

Saint Eutrope de Saintes Basilica is one of the main Catholic shrines in the city of Saintes, in the French department of Charente-Maritime and the diocese of La Rochelle et Saintes. On May 11, 1886, a brief apostolic letter from Pope Leo XIII erected the church as a minor basilica. Founded in 1081, at the instigation of the Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou Guillaume VIII of Aquitaine, consecrated by Pope Urban II in 1096, it honours Saint Eutrope of Saintes, martyr, first bishop and evangelizer of the region.

His tomb, deposited in the crypt, has been visited since that time by many pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela. The abbey of Cluny, to which the church is entrusted from the beginning, favors the establishment of a priory of up to twenty monks, responsible for the celebration of the cult and the organization of the pilgrimage. The French Revolution led to the definitive closure of the priory.

The church, considered obsolete by Prefect Ferdinand Guillemardet, was amputated from his nave in 1803. Until then, St. Eutrope was one of the largest religious buildings in the region: its nave covered the entire current court.

She was also one of the most original...