Exploring the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris, France

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He has been spending the month of July and August in France. He grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip. Asher has a love of history so his dispatches are often full of historical details.

At the beginning of last week, I began taking French classes at the Institut Catholique de Paris, a Catholic university in the sixth arrondissement of Paris. It was founded in the late nineteenth century in the buildings of an old convent, the Convent des Carmes. Among the faculty of this university, there was at the beginning of the nineteenth century Édouard Branly, a French physicist known for discovering the principle of radio conduction and the coherer, a kind of precursor to the radio. The coherer was a radio wave detector that conducted electrical current with metal filings. Specifically the metal filings—in the presence of electrical oscillations—begin to adhere to each other, decreasing the resistance and allowing current to flow. Branly's invention was considered very significant for the invention of the radio. He was a devout Catholic and tried to break down the anticlerical factions of the scientific community that were deeply rooted at the time.

There is today a seminary adjoining the university called the Seminaire des Carmes. Right next to the university is a beautiful church called the Church of St. Joseph des Carmes. It is the first Church in Paris dedicated to St. Joseph, and it was built in the seventeenth century, being consecrated in 1625. It was built at the request of Pope Paul V for the discalced Carmelites in Paris, and there is a painting just above the altar in the center that was gifted by the Queen of France, Anne of Austria, to the convent (she was Austrian, yes, and the wife of the French King Louis XIII; much like how Marie Antoinette was Austrian and the wife of Louis XVI).

The grounds of the university itself are very nice, with neogothic architecture and a beautiful garden courtyard near the building where I study. I take classes in the morning five days a week and twice a week in the afternoon too. They are intensive language courses offered during the summer intended to help develop grammatical and oral skills.

Very quickly after starting classes at the "Catho" (as it is colloquially called around here), I discovered the Church of St. Sulpice, one of the largest and most well-known churches in Paris, is not far away. I have gotten in the habit of going there in the evenings for adoration, and it really is a delightfully ornate church.

Originally, on the site of the present church there was an older Romanesque church that was built in 1180 under the reign of Philippe II Auguste. It was dedicated to St. Sulpice the Pious, archbishop of Bourges in the seventh century. St. Francis de Sales preached there in the early seventeenth century. 

By 1636, it was determined that the church that had been built 450 years before was too small to accomodate the needs of the parish, and so another one was built, the current one, starting in 1645. Jean-Jacques Olier, who founded the community of Sulpicians who exist to this day wished for a church to be built to rival even Notre Dame de Paris, the great Gothic cathedral that had been built in the High Middle Ages on the Île de la Cité in the Seine River.

Anne of Austria (the same who donated the painting to the Carmelites) laid the first stone on February 20, 1646. Due to the difference in height of the old and new churches (the new was higher), there was room to built a crypt underneath the new church for the parish cemetery. The new church was built in a neoclassical style, hearkening back to the ancient Greek and Roman architecture, much like the Church of the Madeleine that I spoke of during my first visit to Paris about a month and a half ago. 

Nevertheless, construction continued for over two centuries, and thus different architectural styles found their way into the building, including a significant Baroque component. In 1719, a new pastor arrived at the Church, Fr. Jean-Baptiste Languet de Gergy. He drew the interest of the Duc d'Orléans (the great-great-great grandfather of the young prince who was killed over a century later at the Porte Maillot), who helped to patronize the construction of the church and personally laid the first stone of the Chapel of St. John the Baptist. 

The abbe during the French Revolution refused to submit to the Civil Constitution for the clergy that was proposed by the revolutionary government and which that government wished the French priests to sign. Nevertheless, the Church became, like many others in France, a "temple of reason" during the revolution. One can find traces of this occupation even today; on the tympanum over the main entrance of the Church, there is an inscription that reads, "The French people recognize the supreme being and the immortality of the soul."

The church was known for its role in the anti-slavery efforts in France in the late nineteenth century, when Cardinal Charles Lavigerie held a meeting there to that effect under the patronage of Pope Leo XIII. 

Victor Hugo was married to Adèle Foucher in the church in 1822. 

Those are the historical details, but what they do not convey is the extraordinary sense of awe and even joy that I experienced upon walking into the majestic space and beholding the magnificent interior. It is, to put it mildly, quite a beautiful church. 

Just through the door, one is struck not only by the massive space but also by the sheer number of small side altars, each ornamented with three paintings or sculptures depicting biblical scenes or scenes from the lives of the saints. In the Vatican I rite of the Mass, concelebration was not practiced, and so if one had many priests to celebrate Mass, they each celebrated their own; hence the need for many side altars. They are not much used now, but nevertheless they hold many important paintings and works of art.

For instance, immediately upon entering (if one enters on the right), there is a small side chapel dedicated to the Holy Angels. It contains three paintings, Saint Michael Slaying the Demon, Heliodorus Driven From the Temple, and Jacob's Struggle with the Angel; all three are by Eugene Delacroix.

Delacroix was a very important French Romantic painter from the nineteenth century; he is considered the leader of the Romantic school, and he is probably best known for his painting, La Liberté Guidant le Peuple (Liberty Guiding the People), with an image of lady liberty, tricolor flag in hand, at the head of a large revolutionary crowd. I am sure we have all seen this painting at some point in our lives. He was awarded the honor of painting for the chapel in 1849, but it was not until 1856 that he set himself seriously to work on the completion of the work, and he continued until 1861. He recalls that he decided to dedicate the chapel to the Holy Angels, and only after making the decision did he realize that he had so decided on the Feast of the Holy Angels. 

Delacroix was known for being a perfectionist, and he once said, "Finishing requires a heart of steel; you have to take a stand on everything, and I find difficulties where I expect none." Indeed, due to the humidity of the walls, he had to use a mixture of wax, resin, and oil and push it into the walls; many, many layers of this was used, leading to a tedious and fatiguing process. 

It is important also to note that Delacroix personally was quite changed during and after his work on Saint Sulpice (he died only two years after finishing). An agnostic, he gradually came to include religious themes in much of his later work. As the informational plaque in the church notes, he said shortly before his death, "God is in us; it is this interior presence which makes us admire the beautiful, which makes us rejoice when we have done well and advises us not to share the happiness of the wicked."

There is, in the middle of the nave, a pulpit from which the celebrant preaches his sermon. It was built in 1788, on the very eve of the French Revolution. It is in the neoclassical style, and it is considered very important in terms of equilibrium and distribution of weight. I have included a picture, and in it you will observe that the pulpit rests only on the two stairs that lead up to it. The Holy Spirit is depicted right over the preacher's head (an obvious allusion to the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles and the divinely inspired sermon the priest is about to give), and the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity flank the pulpit (they are depicted as women). It was actually from this chair that the pastor in 1791 refused in front of a large crowd to submit to the Civil Constitution for the Clergy.

Those are some small details from this amazing church, but hopefully they give a small taste of the majesty and splendor of the building.

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE