Église Saint-Roch de Montpellier, le sanctuaire du saint de la peste

Montpellier

Montpellier holds from the legend, written in Venice in 1479 by Francesco Diedo, that it saw the birth around 1350 of the most popular of the plague saints: Roch, son of a consul, who set off as a pilgrim for Rome, tended the plague-stricken of Italy, was struck in his turn, fed by a dog in a wood, and died in prison, taken for a spy, around 1378. None of this is documented, and a Belgian historian, Pierre Bolle, proposed in 2001 that Roch was the double of a Saint Racho of Autun; but the cult, for its part, is a fact, and the town has taken it as its own. Yet it built its church only very late: it was between 1860 and 1868 that the municipal architect Jean Cassan raised, on a square of the old town, a neo-Gothic building whose two planned spires were never erected — the bell tower has remained truncated. A few years earlier, in 1856, the abbé Recluz had obtained from Venice, where the saint's body has rested since 1485, a bone from the leg; other fragments, including a piece of jaw and a fragment of staff, have joined it. On 16 August, domestic animals are blessed here in memory of the dog that carried the bread. In 2020, the church was raised to the rank of diocesan sanctuary. People come from afar, and here, in the town of his birth, one sees what the plague left that was most lasting: not a monument, but a saint.

Wikipédia — Église Saint-Roch de Montpellier ↗

Getting there : In the pedestrian centre, five minutes' walk from the place de la Comédie and the tram stop of the same name; underground car parks at the Comédie and the Peyrou. The church is open during the day; the saint's relics are displayed in the sanctuary, and many come around 16 August, the feast of Saint Roch, when the town and its animals are blessed. The nearby rue de la Loge is held to be that of the house where he was born.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound