Ste-Marie-Madeleine (Rennes-le-Château)

The church in Rennes-le-Château

Sainte Marie-Madeleine is a Roman Catholic village church in Rennes-le-Château in the south of France . It was inaugurated in 1059 and is dedicated to Mary Magdalene . The former pastor of the village community, Abbé Bérenger Saunière , had it renovated and redesigned from 1891. The church was classified as a monument historique in 1994 .

Furnishing

Abbé Saunière has added two rows of yellow tiles to the canopy at the entrance to the church, which meet at the top in a Sacre-Coeur . Both rows of tiles are each closed by a pigeon and are each divided into eight segments. The following Latin inscriptions are carved directly above the entrance :

Hic domus dei est et porta coelis	(Here is the house of God and the gateway to heaven)
Domus mea domus orationis vocabulary	(My house is called the house of prayers)
Terribilis est locus iste	(This place is awful)
Lumen in coelo	(The light is in heaven)

The inscription "This place is terrible" is an incomplete quote from Genesis 28:17 (Jacob's dream). The full text reads: "This place is terrible, it is the house of God, the gate to heaven"; it is used in the liturgy of church consecration . The second part of the quote can be found a little below the first part, which is placed in the center.

The inscription “My house is called the house of prayers” is also incomplete. In full it reads: “My house is called the house of prayer, but you have made it a place of crooks”.

To the left of the entrance, inside the church, there is a statue of the demon Asmodeus , who carries a holy water font. This looks at the ground. The demon used to be more terrifying than it is today, partly because it had glass eyes. The original head of the Asmodeus has been replaced.

Above the demon there is a circle carried by salamanders or griffins with a red area in the middle of which the letters "BS" can be read in black letters. Saunière has placed four angels immediately above, with a cross in the background. The angels make a sign of the cross . Between the circle and the angels is the sentence “Par ce signe tu le vaincras” (“With this sign you will defeat him”). This sentence is found in a similar way as a traditional saying of the Roman Emperor Constantine . Translated into French , the emperor's saying reads: “Par ce signe tu vaincras” (“With this sign you will win”).

Also in the entrance area of the church is the confessional and a three-dimensional mural with the Beatitudes, which extends over almost the entire width of the room.

During the 1981 election campaign, François Mitterrand had himself photographed together with Roger-Patrice Pelat in the village church of Sainte Marie-Madeleine in front of the holy water font.

The way to the altar is lined with statues of Saints St. Germaine, St. Madeleine , St. Antoin de Padoue , St. Antoine Ermite and St. Roch to the left and right of the rows of seats . The 14 Stations of the Cross of the Passion of Christ are placed between the saints . The holy family is depicted in the chancel. Joseph on the left and Mary on the right. Both carry a child in their arms.

A carving is attached to the altar. It shows Mary Magdalene weeping, kneeling in a cave in front of a cross made of two branches. One of the branches is blooming, the other has died. There used to be an inscription that can only be seen on old photos today. The inscription read "Jesu Medela a vulnerum spes una poenitentium par magdalenae lacrymas peccata nostra diluas".

Seen from the altar on the right is the baptismal scene of Jesus by John the Baptist . The figure of Jesus turns out to be an almost identical, albeit reversed, image of Asmodeus.

In front of the altar, Saunière allegedly discovered the so-called "grave slab of the knights" during the renovation work. It was probably on the relief side, which meant that for a long time only the smooth side was visible.

On March 2, 1981, two months before his election as French President, François Mitterrand visited the village of Rennes-le-Château with its famous buildings.

The church gained a certain degree of notoriety through a mention in the pseudoscientific book The Holy Grail and its Heirs by the authors Henry Lincoln , Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, and with other buildings in Rennes-le-Château it became the subject of modern legend formation. Graphic representations of the building can be found in the computer game Gabriel Knight 3, which focuses on the buildings in Rennes-le-Château and the village itself.