Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Basciano, Jessica
• Jordan, Kate
• Lepine, Ayla

Titel

Sisterly love in Lisieux: Building the Basilica of Sainte-Thérèse

Ist Teil von

• Modern Architecture and Religious Communities, 1850–1970, 2018, p.15-29

Auflage

1

Ort / Verlag

Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2018

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The Basilica of Sainte-Thérèse (1929–54) was built to accommodate the modern pilgrimage to Lisieux, France, following the rapid growth of the Catholic devotion to Saint Thérèse, a Carmelite whose autobiography was published after her death in 1897 as Histoire d’une âme, Story of a Soul in English. This chapter argues that Thérèse’s fellow nuns, especially two who were her biological sisters, Pauline and Céline Martin, played a vital role in building the basilica. They bought property, raised funds and made key decisions on the design. At first, they planned to build a Gothic Revival church according to plans by Julien Barbier, but they soon decided to execute the Romano-Byzantine design of Louis-Marie Cordonnier. Building the church was part of the nuns’ effort to shape Thérèse’s legacy and to foster the pilgrimage in a manner that protected their community. While acknowledging the input of local clerics and Pope Pius XI, this chapter concentrates on the nuns’ involvement and presents it as an example of the opportunity that Catholic religious orders offered women in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. This chapter argues that the Carmelite nuns in Saint Therese's convent, including her biological sisters, played a vital role in building the church. It considers the church from the perspective of the extraordinary growth of women's religious orders in the nineteenth century. However, owing to the immense appeal of her message of childlike trust in the love of God, which spread rapidly through the publication of her autobiography after her death, she soon became internationally famous and was canonized in 1925. She was built in response to the resulting arrival of crowds of pilgrims in Lisieux, which overwhelmed the chapel of the Carmel. Much more closely related to the Lisieux church is Cordonnier's memorial church and campanile of 1927 in the French national battlefield cemetery of Notre-Dame de Lorette. Women had limited educational and economic opportunities, married wives had no civil status separate from their husbands until 1939 and women gained suffrage only in 1944.