Sant Martí de la Roca

About

The chapel or church of Saint-Martin-de-la-Roche (Sant Martí de la Roca in Catalan) is a Romanesque church in Camélas, France.

Situation: The chapel Saint-Martin-de-la-Roche is located at the top of a hill, in the south of the commune of Camelas. Its location offers panoramic views of the Mediterranean, the Canigou Massif, and the Roussillon Plain.

History: The chapel appears in the texts under the name of Ecclesia Santi Maritini de Rupe in 1259. It maintained a religious link between the inhabitants of the surrounding hamlets but was gradually abandoned. At the end of the seventeenth century, many abandoned religious buildings were transformed into hermitages. This is the case of the chapel Saint-Martin-de-la-Roca, formerly chapel of Querubi, which became a hermitage in 1644 thanks to Abbé Honoré Cuiro. The hermitage was provided with a dwelling in 1646. Many hermits followed it until the Revolution. There were 7 of them in the first two decades. The living conditions were indeed very harsh. Following the anticlerical laws of 1790 designed to suppress the...