St. Nicholas Church, Boulogne-sur-Mer, France

St. Nicholas Church is a large, cruciform town church set on Place Dalton at the heart of the lower town which clusters below the walls of the citadel. Due to the destruction of the French Revolution, WWI and WWII it is the most significant surviving medieval building in the town.

The church is first mentioned in 1208 as a foundation of the Abbey of Notre-Dame within the citadel, a relationship which existed into the 16th century. About this time, the silting up of one of the channels caused the centre of the town to move southwards, and St Nicholas took over from St Peter as the main town church.

The vaulted roofs in the nave and transepts were installed in the 17th century, but their weight caused the walls to crack, and as part of the rebuilding the nave was widened and lengthened, a response to the doubling in population of the lower town that century.

All the glass was destroyed during the liberation, and has so far been replaced in the lower stories with some splendid 1980s abstract designs.

References:

simonknott.co.uk

User Reviews

Yee Wang (13 months ago)
Boulogne-sur-Mer (French: Boulogne-sur-Mer) is a port city along the English Channel in the Calais Province, Upper France, with a population of 44,859 (1999). France’s largest fishing port has modern seaport facilities; it is also a car ferry port between France and Britain. Industries such as non-ferrous metallurgy, shipbuilding, machinery, textiles and canned fish are developed. Military fortress. There are many ancient buildings in the city, such as a castle built in the 13th century, a city hall in the 18th century, and a church in the 16th to 18th centuries. The bathing beach attracts many tourists. The first Global Esperanto Congress was held in Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1905.

Marva Samuels (2 years ago)
Very very lovely to see and the place was put of this world ... I loved it

Jack Ls (2 years ago)
Beautiful church on Dalton Square. Above the square you can admire the statue of Saint Nicolas. Bright interior. Beautiful nave. To see if you are passing.

Philippe Lebecq (2 years ago)
Correct

Kamna Pruvost (2 years ago)
Beautiful church.

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Photo from Flickr, copyright Varvara_R

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Trinity Sergius Lavra

The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius is a world famous spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church and a popular site of pilgrimage and tourism. It is the most important working Russian monastery and a residence of the Patriarch. This religious and military complex represents an epitome of the growth of Russian architecture and contains some of that architecture’s finest expressions. It exerted a profound influence on architecture in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe.

The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, was founded in 1337 by the monk Sergius of Radonezh. Sergius achieved great prestige as the spiritual adviser of Dmitri Donskoi, Great Prince of Moscow, who received his blessing to the battle of Kulikov of 1380. The monastery started as a little wooden church on Makovets Hill, and then developed and grew stronger through the ages.

Over the centuries a unique ensemble of more than 50 buildings and constructions of different dates were established. The whole complex was erected according to the architectural concept of the main church, the Trinity Cathedral (1422), where the relics of St. Sergius may be seen.

In 1476 Pskovian masters built a brick belfry east of the cathedral dedicated to the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. The church combines unique features of early Muscovite and Pskovian architecture. A remarkable feature of this church is a bell tower under its dome without internal interconnection between the belfry and the cathedral itself.

The Cathedral of the Assumption, echoing the Cathedral of the Assumption in the Moscow Kremlin, was erected between 1559 and 1585. The frescoes of the Assumption Cathedral were painted in 1684. At the north-western corner of the Cathedral, on the site of the western porch, in 1780 a vault containing burials of Tsar Boris Godunov and his family was built.

In the 16th century the monastery was surrounded by 6 meters high and 3,5 meters thick defensive walls, which proved their worth during the 16-month siege by Polish-Lithuanian invaders during the Time of Trouble. They were later strengthened and expanded.

After the Upheaval of the 17th century a large-scale building programme was launched. At this time new buildings were erected in the north-western part of the monastery, including infirmaries topped with a tented church dedicated to Saints Zosima and Sawatiy of Solovki (1635-1637). Few such churches are still preserved, so this tented church with a unique tiled roof is an important contribution to the Lavra.

In the late 17th century a number of new buildings in Naryshkin (Moscow) Baroque style were added to the monastery.

Following a devastating fire in 1746, when most of the wooden buildings and structures were destroyed, a major reconstruction campaign was launched, during which the appearance of many of the buildings was changed to a more monumental style. At this time one of the tallest Russian belfries (88 meters high) was built.

In the late 18th century, when many church lands were secularized, the chaotic planning of the settlements and suburbs around the monastery was replaced by a regular layout of the streets and quarters. The town of Sergiev Posad was surrounded by traditional ramparts and walls. In the vicinity of the monastery a number of buildings belonging to it were erected: a stable yard, hotels, a hospice, a poorhouse, as well as guest and merchant houses. Major highways leading to the monastery were straightened and marked by establishing entry squares, the overall urban development being oriented towards the centrepiece - the Ensemble of the Trinity Sergius Lavra.

In 1993, the Trinity Lavra was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

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