This Wintersession, I traveled to Paris, France, with the Wellesley College French and Francophone Studies Department. While I spent many hours in a modern classroom practicing grammar and analyzing French media, I spent many more hours traversing the city’s cobbled streets with my peers, on the lookout for places of interest. I soon discovered one of the best-kept secrets of the city: it is teeming with breathtaking churches (197 to be exact).
In contrast to many American churches I have visited, which tend to focus on being modest and efficient in appearance, Parisian churches flaunt their splendor with abandon. Each of the seven cathedrals I visited exhibited arrays of precious stones, stained-glass windows, intricate woodwork, masterful statues, gilt frescoes, and arched ceilings. Even as a Protestant Christian, I still found the displays of Catholic art and architecture intriguing and mesmerizing.
Despite their breathtaking beauty, only Notre Dame, Basilica Sacre-Coeur and Sainte-Chapelle were well-visited; many churches were strangely bereft of both sightseers and local worshippers. The lack of locals may not come as much of a surprise, as France saw a drop in its Christian population between 2010-2020, and the population of new Christians is less ornamentary and more Protestant than in the past. While the stone towers and 18th-century organs show the Christian faith of the past, I would like to make a case for visiting and raising awareness about these structures regardless of one’s religion:
1) Parisian cathedrals double as repositories of French history. Some churches, like Notre Dame, still serve as storage vaults for artifacts like Napoleon’s coronation robe and the Crown of Thorns. Others showcase crypts that date as far back as the classical period. Saint-Denis Cathedral, for example, was built on an early medieval abbey, which was built on top of a Gaullo-Roman burial ground (which can still be visited today). Because of the French Revolution, many of these churches were desecrated of their finery and briefly turned into secular meeting places, though they were returned to the Catholic church during the 19th century. Cathedrals are where coronations were had, controversial figures were entered and treasures were hidden during wartimes. They are survivors of the ebbs and flows of time.
2) Visiting churches offers a more off-the-beaten-path experience. Non-locals are allowed to tour any church with an active congregation for free and most locals (and tourists) pass these buildings without a second glance, making them the perfect place to wait out a rainstorm or take a break from sightseeing. The beauty of these churches’ obscurity is that you never know if you will stumble upon a midday organ performance or the place where they filmed The Da Vinci Code. Plus, many smell delightfully of old wood and incense and are perfect for moody pictures.
3) You get to see restoration efforts in the process. While on the trip, I got to catch a glimpse of stained glass being repaired in Sainte-Chapelle, frescoes being refreshed in Saint-Sulpice, the facade of Notre Dame receiving some of its post-fire finishing retouches and a medieval tower being reinstated at Saint-Denis (by traditional artisans, no less!).
4) Parisian cathedrals are a testament to how French art, religion, and architecture have stayed continuous and changed over time. I am not an art history major, so my knowledge of terminology and time periods is limited, but even as an amateur, it was fascinating to see how churches built in the 500s, 1000s, or 1500s differed in artistic character. From the colorful Saint-Germain-de-Pres to the strictly gothic Saint-Denis (which was the inspiration for the architecture of Notre Dame and Victor Hugo’s famed novel), from the abandoned baroque Saint-Sulpice and Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis to the touristy, World War-era Sacre-Coeur, each church had a different strength, but all seemed to share the goal of exhibiting early-modern European art at its finest to inspire churchgoers.
