FRANCE – 4th “Nuit des églises” draws attention to endangered churches

FRANCE – 4th “Nuit des églises” draws attention to endangered churches

There are over 40.000 (catholic) churches in France, which, because renovations are increasingly hard to finance, are in increasing danger. Some of them are to be demolished. The Church of France has organised a ‘Nuit des Eglises’  on Saturday July 5 in 600 places of worship throughout the country to invite citizens to discover this religious heritage which is closed most of the time; in many churches, there are too few parishioners to hold services.

France has an exceptional heritage of some 45.000 parochial churches – not counting private chapels or abbeys – a third of which are listed as historic monuments, sometimes dating back to the Middle Ages. A growing number of these buildings is desecrated; in 2011, France had 13.822 priests, compared to 25.203 in 1990.

The Church is the allocator of these buildings, but the municipalities are the owners of church buildings built before 1905, having to assure their conservation – a real problem, when funds are shrinking.

Read the full article in French here.

 

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