Our Lady of Liberation

About

Our Lady of Liberation is a Catholic church and a memorial site built on the Mount of Buis inside the ditches of an ancient fort that dominates the city of Besançon (Doubs) at an altitude of nearly 500 metres. Originally this military site, built during the Franco-Prussian conflict of 1870, was to strengthen the defences of the capital, but, like many other bisontin buildings of this type, it had become obsolete and left to abandonment. After the Second World War, Archbishop Maurice-Louis Dubourg had a place of remembrance and memory built as he had promised if the city had not been devastated by the bombings. The site of the fort des Buis-est was chosen for this purpose. A crypt surmounted by a statue of the Virgin Mary was dedicated to it in 1949. The names of the 5,500 diocesan, civilian and military people who died during the Second World War, without distinction of religions, appear on commemorative plaques covering the interior walls of the building.

In 2011, the crypt became obsolete and judged in a state of concern, a total rehabilitation was undertaken, restoring all its splendor to the building. Today...