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According to biblical accounts, the apostle "Saint Jacques" was the first person to be executed for his faith, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, making him an early martyr (blood witness) of Christianity. His tomb in the town named after him, "Santiago de Compostela" (Galicia, Spain), is one of the most famous and important pilgrimage destinations in the world and is often ranked third after Jerusalem and Rome. Yesterday (July 25) was his feast day in the calendar of saints. When this date falls on a Sunday (this was last the case in 2021), the Catholic Church celebrates a special "Holy Year" there (extended by Pope Francis until 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic).

This church in Meslay-Le-Vidame, whose architecture reflects the formal language of antiquity, was dedicated to the patron saint of Saint Etienne. He was one of the first seven deacons of the original Jerusalem church and, according to the biblical accounts in the New Testament, the first martyr (martyr) of early Christianity. The church commemorates his death on Boxing Day, December 26th. As the Acts of the Apostles recounts: When Stephen recounted his vision of the open heavens, "And he, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God" (Chapter 7, Verse 55), the people were so outraged that they drove him out of the city and stoned him.

The place to take a break in Illiers-Combray.

superb car-free road

Very beautiful church from the 15th century with a painted wooden beam ceiling.

Unfortunately, the church was not accessible when I visited (mid-September 2024). You could only look in through a gate and the dance of death depictions on the left side were not really visible. In front of them were transparencies with skeleton drawings. Maybe those were the depictions...

Built at the beginning of the 20th century, it was consecrated in 1903. It replaced an old 12th century church, contemporary with a convent of which only the chapel dedicated to the three Marys remains today. It is decorated with stained glass windows by master glassmaker Lorin: three windows (on the right) are dedicated to the appearance of Christ to the Saints Mary and three windows (on the left) to the apparitions of the Virgin at La Salette in the Alps in Isère in 1846. The patron saints of the church, Saint Gervais and Saint Protais appear on the stained glass windows of the choir. In 2003 the centenary of the church was celebrated and in 2004, two glass roofs, made by the Petit workshops of La Bourdinière Saint Loup, were mounted on the second level of the nave: the resurrection of Lazarus and the healing of the paralytic. It preserves an organ from 1892, by the maker Louis Delierre, from Nantes. The church of Mignières receives pilgrims faithful to the three holy Marys of the Gospel (Marie-Jacobé, Marie-Magdeleine and Marie-Salomé) on May 22, July 22 and October 22.

The Saint-Germain de Morancez church could date from the 10th century. Its cut stone facade is punctuated by four buttresses framing a portal. This is composed of three concentric arches resting on engaged columns, decorated with capitals. The zigzag decoration of the arches confirms a dating before the 12th century. The occulus surmounting the porch illuminates a semi-circular vaulted nave. This was enlarged with an aisle built much later and where there is an altar dedicated to the Virgin. The furniture remains simple but not without interest with its benches enclosed in painted wood. However, it is worth mentioning a sculpted pulpit from the 18th century. In 1707, the prior-parish priest of Morancez was Nicolas Courvoisier, religious of the Saint-Jean-en-Vallée abbey. A poet, he is notably the author of a Latin ode addressed to the people of Chartres on the death of Paul de Godet des Marais1. He died on May 14, 1742 in Morancez and was buried in the church. (his tombstone remains to be identified.) Although Morancez was a modest parish, in 1851 it benefited from a prestigious gift from Jérôme Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon I, governor of Les Invalides, then in residence at the Château de Gourdez. He offered the church a painting, Moses makes water flow from the rock, painted by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli between 1657 and 1660. This Italian artist had been called to decorate the cabinet called "At the water's edge" of the apartment of Queen Anne of Austria at the Louvre. He created a decor, now dismembered, composed of a set of six paintings devoted to the story of Moses, including the work, classified as a Historic Monument, preserved in our church. Another interesting work which could be attributed to the school of Philippe de Champaigne represents Jesus among the doctors. These two paintings benefited from a restoration in 1998