Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet
Encyclopedia
Traditionalist Catholic
Traditionalist Catholics are Roman Catholics who believe that there should be a restoration of many or all of the liturgical forms, public and private devotions and presentations of Catholic teachings which prevailed in the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council...
Society of St. Pius X
Society of St. Pius X
The Society of Saint Pius X is an international Traditionalist Catholic organisation, founded in 1970 by the French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre...
and remains in the Society's possession to this day.
History until 1977
The church was first built in the 13th century and was reconstructed between 1656 and 1763.In 1612, Adrien Bourdoise founded a seminary at Saint-Nicolas
In the late 17th century, noted harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
ist Jean-Nicolas Geoffroy
Jean-Nicolas Geoffroy
Jean-Nicolas Geoffroy was a French harpsichordist and organist. His birthplace is unknown; he died in Perpignan....
(1633–1694) served as titular organist of the church.
In the 19th century the adjacent Mutualité site was occupied by a seminary. There, Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan was a French expert of Middle East ancient languages and civilizations, philosopher and writer, devoted to his native province of Brittany...
studied under the direction of the Abbé Dupanloup, who attained celebrity in 1838 when he reconciled the notoriously amoral diplomat Talleyrand, who had received the minor orders at Saint-Nicholas, to the church on his death-bed. (Dupanloup subsequently became Bishop of Orléans and a member of the Académie française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
).
Since 1905, the city of Paris, following the Law on the separation of Church and State
1905 French law on the separation of Church and State
The 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and State was passed by the Chamber of Deputies on 9 December 1905. Enacted during the Third Republic, it established state secularism in France...
, claims ownership of the church but grants the Roman Catholic Church a free usage right.
1977 occupation and consequences
In 1977, eleven years before the Ecône ConsecrationsEcône Consecrations
The Écône consecrations were a set of episcopal consecrations that took place in Écône, Switzerland, on 30 June 1988. They were performed by Roman Catholic Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and Bishop Antonio de Castro Meyer, and the priests raised to the episcopacy were four members of Lefebvre's Society...
, members of the Society of St. Pius X led by François Ducaud-Bourget
Francois Ducaud-Bourget
Monsignor François Ducaud-Bourget was a prominent traditionalist Roman Catholic French prelate, priest and close ally of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre....
expelled the parish priest and his assistants and occupied the church.
Shortly afterwards, the city of Paris gave an eviction order. In 1978, the Court of Cassation
Court of Cassation (France)
The French Supreme Court of Judicature is France's court of last resort having jurisdiction over all matters triable in the judicial stream but only scope of review to determine a miscarriage of justice or certify a question of law based solely on points of law...
confirmed that the occupation was illegal but the order of eviction was never implemented. On February 20, 1987, the Conseil d'État ruled that the disturbance to public order resulting from an expulsion would be higher than that resulting from the illegal occupation.
In 1993, the SSPX members, led by Philippe Laguérie
Philippe Laguérie
Philippe Laguérie is a French priest and a Traditionalist Catholic. He directs the Institut du Bon Pasteur, which upholds the Tridentine Mass.- Career :...
, unsuccessfully attempted to occupy another church in Paris, St-Germain l'Auxerrois.
On June 22, 2002, the municipal council of Paris passed a resolution that the Society of St Pius X should be expelled from the church, against the wishes of the socialist Mayor Bertrand Delanoë
Bertrand Delanoë
Bertrand Delanoë is a French politician, and has been the mayor of Paris since 2001. He is member of the Socialist Party . Delanoë was born in Tunis, Tunisia to a French-Tunisian father and a French mother...
, who considered it an internal matter of the Catholic Church, remarking that the Archbishop of Paris
Archbishop of Paris
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Paris is one of twenty-three archdioceses of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The original diocese is traditionally thought to have been created in the 3rd century by St. Denis and corresponded with the Civitas Parisiorum; it was elevated to an archdiocese on...
had not requested that the Society be expelled.
Current situation
It is now the society's only church in the city of Paris itself (others exist in the Île de France) and although it is not their official French headquarters it is seen as their de facto national centre.On a typical Sunday there are about six Mass
Tridentine Mass
The Tridentine Mass is the form of the Roman Rite Mass contained in the typical editions of the Roman Missal that were published from 1570 to 1962. It was the most widely celebrated Mass liturgy in the world until the introduction of the Mass of Paul VI in December 1969...
es sung back to back, with almost no interruption.