Église des Saints-Archanges: A Medieval Gothic Chapel and Romanian Orthodox Cathedral in Paris
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page7 sections
History
The Église des Saints-Archanges is a Gothic medieval chapel in Paris, France, built in the 1370s for the Dormans College of the former University of Paris. Construction began in 1374 and was completed in the late 1370s. The chapel was designed by Raymond du Temple, a prominent medieval architect associated with royal building projects, and was originally dedicated to Saint John the Evangelist.
Foundation for the Dormans College
The college was founded in 1365 by Jean de Dormans, a royal chancellor and bishop of Beauvais. A fourteenth-century French churchman, he established the institution as part of the academic and religious world of the University of Paris. The chapel formed part of the college complex and served its religious needs.
Revolutionary and nineteenth-century changes
After the college was suppressed during the French Revolution, its buildings passed through several uses. They accommodated meetings of the revolutionary section of the Panthéon, became the seat of the 12th municipality of Paris, and then served as a barracks from 1801 to 1855. From 1868, the complex was used as a Dominican convent.
The chapel was threatened with demolition, but the historian and archaeologist Jules Quicherat helped secure its preservation. The Romanian state purchased it in September 1882, and restoration and adaptation for Romanian Orthodox worship continued from 1882 to 1892. The building was consecrated in 1892 and has served the Romanian Orthodox Church since 1882. Its dedication was changed to the Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, high-ranking angelic figures in Christian tradition associated respectively with protection, divine messages, and healing. The chapel had already been listed as a protected historic monument on 11 December 1881.
Romanian Orthodox cathedral
The church became a setting for important events in Orthodox religious life. In 1988, the Diocese of Western Europe of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia celebrated services there to mark the millennium of the Baptism of Rus. On 10 May 2009, the Romanian church in exile rejoined the Romanian Orthodox Church after a sixty-year separation. The church then became the seat of the Metropolitanate of Western and Southern Europe and was elevated to cathedral status.
The Romanian writer and Orthodox priest Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu served at the church from 1963 and became its pastor in 1971. In 2008, the Dumitru Stăniloae Centre for theological study and research opened within the cathedral. Founded by decision of the metropolitan synod, the centre provides general theological education. Patriarch Daniel, the head of the Romanian Orthodox Church, inaugurated it in July 2009. Its courses are taught on site, and the programme subsequently received accreditation from the Paris Academy.
Remains
Medieval chapel
The Église des Saints-Archanges retains the form of a Gothic chapel from the later fourteenth century. Its nave is divided into five bays and covered by an original timber roof structure made by Jacques de Chartres, the king’s carpenter. These surviving elements preserve the building’s medieval character within the former college complex.
Facade and interior features
The facade was altered under Louis XV and reconstructed in the late nineteenth century as a pastiche of fourteenth-century Gothic architecture. Its portal tympanum contains a 1926 mosaic by Guibert-Martin showing the three archangels to whom the church is dedicated. Stained-glass windows depicting the Apostles were remounted in 1824 at the Church of Saint-Séverin, linking elements of the chapel’s earlier decorative history with another medieval church in Paris.
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