Places of worship in France
Le Puy en Velay
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
The Cathedral Notre-Dame-de-l’Annonciation du Puy-en-Velay
THE SITE
The Cathedral Notre-Dame-de-l’Annonciation du Puy-en-Velay is a major monument of Romanesque art and the Christian West. It was erected in minor basilica by a brief apostolic of Pius IX, on February 11, 1856.
A black Virgin, object of many pilgrimages over the centuries, sits on a baroque high altar. The present effigy replaces the one that would have been offered by St. Louis on his return from the crusade of Egypt, and was burned during the French Revolution.
Puy-en-Velay is, with Chartres, the oldest Marian sanctuary of Christian Gaul. Under the pavement of the choir, we found the foundations of this first church measuring 12 m × 24 m. Even today, pilgrims lie on the stone to receive the benefits.
If the origin of the worship of Our Lady of the Annunciation is in the Fevre Stone, the Middle Age and modern times worship the Black Madonna.
