Basilique Saint-Étienne de Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre

Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre

Returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the mid-11th century, Eudes I of Déols had a rotunda imitating the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem raised in the heart of the Bas-Berry, a gesture of devotion as much as an assertion of lordship over the region. The masons did not copy the model: they took over its round form and adapted it to the terrain, with eleven pillars, a number that tradition interprets as the eleven apostles who remained faithful. The rotunda, capped outside by a conical roof, measures 8.30 m across and 16 m high; a nave was joined to it in the 13th century. In 1257 Cardinal Eudes de Châteauroux, papal legate and a confidant of Saint Louis, deposited there two drops of the Precious Blood of Christ and a fragment of his tomb, kept in a reliquary at the centre of the rotunda until 1806. The sanctuary became a major goal of pilgrimage on the routes to Compostela: a figure of some 10,000 pilgrims a year over seven centuries is put forward, against around 300 at the end of the 20th century. The collegiate church, first dedicated to Saint James the Great, was renamed Saint-Étienne in 1847 after the destruction of the parish church, and Pius X raised it to the rank of minor basilica in 1910. The procession of the Precious Blood, on Easter Monday, still keeps this cult alive.

À Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre, ces traces de Jérusalem — Terre Sainte Magazine ↗

Getting there : In the centre of the village, 1 rue de l'Abbé Bedu, some thirty kilometres south of Châteauroux; the building is wheelchair-accessible. The high point is the procession of the relics of the Precious Blood, on Easter Monday. The monument has been listed since 1840 and was inscribed by UNESCO in 1998 as part of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela.

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

Ambient sound