église saint-pierre de montmartre

The Église Saint-Pierre de Montmartre is a Roman Catholic parish church located in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, at the top of Montmartre hill, at 2 rue du Mont-Cenis, west of the Sacré-Cœur Basilica.

It is one of the two Catholic parish churches on the hill, along with the Église Saint-Jean de Montmartre, and since the French Revolution, it has been the oldest parish church in Paris after Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

It succeeded a Merovingian basilica dedicated to Saint Denis, five capitals and four marble columns of which were reused in the current church, the columns themselves originating from an ancient temple.

Very dilapidated at the beginning of the 12th century, the old basilica was acquired by King Louis the Fat in 1133, who had it replaced by a new Romanesque church, consecrated in 1147 by Pope Eugene III. Queen Adélaïde de Savoie simultaneously founded an abbey of Benedictine nuns south of the church, known as the Royal Abbey of Montmartre. The church was therefore both parochial and abbatial. The construction of the nave was only completed after the middle of the 12th century, and the apse was rebuilt in the early Gothic style at the end of the same century.

The current vaults of the nave and the transept crossing are, however, Flamboyant Gothic and date from around 1470, when the church required significant repairs following the Hundred Years' War.

In 1686, the nuns moved to a new monastery near Place des Abbesses, and the church has since been for the exclusive use of the parish, but remained the property of the Royal Abbey of Montmartre until its dissolution in 1792.

Two years later, the apse of the church was damaged by the construction of the Chappe tower above it. As a result, the eastern parts of the church were not returned to worship when it reopened in 1803. It was in a deplorable state, and restoration campaigns in 1838-1845 and 1874 were too limited to prevent its ruin. The closure of the church for safety reasons in 1896 seemed to be definitive, and the decision to save it was only made at the last minute.

The restoration was undertaken under the direction of Louis Sauvageot between 1900 and 1905, and the Église Saint-Pierre then acquired its current appearance. It was classified as a historical monument on May 21, 1923, and is today a significant place of Christian spirituality in the north of the capital.