Église Sainte-Geneviève, Montréal
Location	Sainte-Geneviève, Québéc Sainte-Geneviève, Quebec thumb|upright|left|Église Sainte-GenevièveSainte-Geneviève is a former municipality located on the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada...
Affiliation	Roman Catholic
Parish priest	Fr. Robert Sirois
Architectural description
Architectural type	Parish church Parish church A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....
Architectural style	Baroque and Spanish revivalist
Direction of facade	SSE
Year completed	1844
Architect	Thomas Baillargé
Specifications
Length	150 ft
Width	66 ft
Height (roof)	66 ft
Steeples	two (2)
Steeple heights	111 ft.
Spire heights	45 ft.
Materials	Dimension stone Dimension stone Dimension stone is natural stone or rock that has been selected and fabricated to specific sizes or shapes. Color, texture and pattern, and surface finish of the stone are also normal requirements...

The Église Sainte-Geneviève (Church of St. Genevieve) is a parish church

Parish church

A parish church , in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....

 located in the former village of Sainte-Geneviève, Québec

Sainte-Geneviève, Quebec

thumb|upright|left|Église Sainte-GenevièveSainte-Geneviève is a former municipality located on the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada...

 (now part of Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

) on the north-west shore of the Island of Montreal

Island of Montreal

The Island of Montreal , in extreme southwestern Quebec, Canada, is located at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers. It is separated from Île Jésus by the Rivière des Prairies....

 overlooking the Rivière des Prairies

Rivière des Prairies

The Rivière des Prairies is a delta channel of the Ottawa River in southwestern Quebec, Canada....

. Its affiliation is Roman Catholic and it is administered under the Diocese of Montreal by La Paroisse Sainte-Geneviève de Pierrefonds, founded by Antoine Faucon in 1741. Construction of the church, headed by Louis-Marie Lefèvre, was completed in 1844 and was designed by architect Thomas Baillargé.

History

In 1731 the Société de Saint-Sulpice (Sulpician Order of priests), a Catholic mission in Quebec, granted the first concession of territory to be apportioned to the Paroisse Sainte-Geneviève, one of eighteen parishes that occupied, by 1834, the Island of Montreal

Island of Montreal

The Island of Montreal , in extreme southwestern Quebec, Canada, is located at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers. It is separated from Île Jésus by the Rivière des Prairies....

. Situated along the north-west shore of the Rivière des Prairies, between Saraguay to the east and Senneville to the west, it was divided in 1731 into 85 smaller parcels of land, and a chapel was constructed there, on parcel number 67, completed in 1739. Antoine Faucon, parish founder, began registering with parishioners two years later.

In 1751 a larger church was constructed and stood until 1847 when it was razed and re-integrated into current structures on the property. A presbytery

Presbytery (architecture)

The presbytery is the name for an area in a church building which is reserved for the clergy.In the oldest church it is separated by short walls, by small columns and pilasters in the Renaissance ones; it can also be raised, being reachable by a few steps, usually with railings....

 was also built in 1830. In 1843, Louis-Marie Lefèvre, the fifth priest of the parish from 1828 to 1872, undertook the promoting of a new church and commissioned Québécois

French-speaking Quebecer

French-speaking Quebecers are francophone residents of the Canadian province of Quebec....

 architect Thomas Baillargé (1791–1859) to begin work on a layout.

Architecture

Construction began in 1843 and borrowed heavily from Neo-classic

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...

, Colonial and Spanish revival, using materials that were quarried locally. The facade was finished in dimension stone

Dimension stone

Dimension stone is natural stone or rock that has been selected and fabricated to specific sizes or shapes. Color, texture and pattern, and surface finish of the stone are also normal requirements...

 and capped off by two silver spires, or flèches, that towered 111 feet above the ground. In 1868, Monseigneur Ignace Bourget

Ignace Bourget

Ignace Bourget was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic priest who held the title of Bishop of Montreal from 1840 to 1876. Born in Lévis, Quebec in 1799, Bourget entered the clergy at an early age, undertook several courses of religious study, and in 1837 was named co-adjutor bishop of the newly...

, bishop of the diocese of Montreal, ordered that two statues, one of Saint Anne

Saint Anne

Saint Hanna of David's house and line, was the mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of Jesus Christ according to Christian and Islamic tradition. English Anne is derived from Greek rendering of her Hebrew name Hannah...

 and the other of Saint Joachim, occupy niches over the main doors.

Interior

Between 1844 and 1847, interior work continued, under the creative direction of Victor Bourgeau, by head contractor Felix Barbeau. The main altar

Altar

An altar is any structure upon which offerings such as sacrifices are made for religious purposes. Altars are usually found at shrines, and they can be located in temples, churches and other places of worship...

 was built by Ambroise Fournier and the side altars by Charles Dauphin in 1863. The stained glass windows were created by O'Shea of Montreal in 1926 and three paintings, situated behind the main altar that depict Sainte-Geneviève, were painted by renowned Quebec artist Ozias Leduc

Ozias Leduc

Ozias Leduc is one of Quebec's early painters. He was born in Saint-Hilaire-de-Rouville. Leduc produced many portraits, still lives and landscapes, as well as religious works.-Biography:...

. The crypt, which lies on a foundation measuring a thickness of three feet, contains the remains of Louis-Marie Lefèvre, church founder, who was laid to rest there in 1972.

Parish

Parishioner membership today is estimated to be approximately 8,500 families.

Principals of the parish

• Abbot Robert Sirois, parish priest
• Zbigniew Skowronek, vicar
• Monseigneur Paul-Emile Charbonneau, Sunday vicar
• Abbot Jean D' Avila Prévost
• Jean-Pierre Guertin, deacon
• Jean-Paul Laniel, deacon

Address

• Église Sainte-Geneviève (Sainte-Genevieve Church)
• 16037 Boul Gouin Ouest (West)
• Montreal, QC, CANADA H9H 1C7
• Tel: 514.696.4489 Téléc: 514.620.7179

Trivia

• On the church grounds, towards the rear of the property that overlooks the scenic riverbank of Rivière des Prairies is a cemetery (sepulchre
  Sepulchre
  The rock-cut tombs in ancient Israel are a group of hundreds of rock-cut tombs constructed in Israel in ancient times. They were cut into the rock, sometimes with elaborate facades and multiple burial chambers. Some are free-standing, but most are caves. Each tomb typically belonged to a...
  
  ), used until 1965, that has the remains of 737 parishioners.

External links

• Église Sainte-Geneviève's website This page has been translated to English with Google Automatic Translation as the original is in French.
• Catholic Diocese of Montreal
• Photos of Église Sainte-Geneviève's cemetery
• Religious Heritage in Quebec