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St. Paul's Church, Strasbourg

19th-century Protestant churchesChurches completed in 1897Churches in StrasbourgGothic Revival church buildings in FranceMonuments historiques of Strasbourg
Reformed church buildings in FranceReligious organizations established in 1892
Strasbourg St Paul septembre 2015 (recadré)
Strasbourg St Paul septembre 2015 (recadré)

The St. Paul's Church of Strasbourg (French: Église réformée Saint-Paul or Église Saint-Paul de Strasbourg) is a major Gothic Revival architecture building and one of the landmarks of the city of Strasbourg, in Alsace, France. Built between 1892 and 1897 during the time of the Reichsland Elsass-Lothringen (1870–1918), the church was designed for the Lutheran members of the Imperial German garrison stationed in Strasbourg. Several of the church's most striking features, such as its great width relative to its not so great length and the inordinately high number of portals and entrances giving access to it (19 in all, compared to Strasbourg Cathedral's 7) result from the need to accommodate military personnel from the very highest ranks down, including the Emperor, in case he came (the actual Imperial Palace being not far away). In 1919, after the return of Alsace to France, the church was handed over to the Protestant Reformed Church of Alsace and Lorraine and became its second parish church in the town after Bouclier parish. For the overall design of the church, architect Louis Muller (1842–1898) drew his inspiration from the Elisabeth Church of Marburg, although he did not slavishly copy its design, gracing St. Paul's Church with three large and elaborate rose windows modelled on the (smaller scaled) rose window adorning the façade of St. Thomas' Church. The 20 m (66 ft) high nave was originally supposed to have four bays instead of three and thus the building to be 5 m (16 ft) longer and shaped like a Latin cross; but because of excessive costs due to technical difficulties with the foundations, it was shortened to a Greek cross. Thanks to its spires rising up to 76 m (249 ft) and its spectacular location at the southern extremity of an island in the middle of the largest section of the Ill River, the church can be seen from far away. The church furnishings were damaged from British and American bombing raids in August 1944, as well as, as far as the stained glass windows are concerned, from a violent hailstorm in 1958, incidentally the same hailstorm that destroyed most of the Botanical Garden's historical greenhouses. The most outstanding feature inside is the main tribune pipe organ of 1897 (modified in 1934 and restored several times since), also classified as Monument historique. This is, by the number of pipes and registers as well as by the sheer size of the organ case, one of the largest instruments in Alsace and most probably Eastern France. In 1976, a second pipe organ was installed in the transept.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article St. Paul's Church, Strasbourg (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

St. Paul's Church, Strasbourg
Quai Mullenheim, Strasbourg Quartier des XV

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N 48.586388888889 ° E 7.7597222222222 °
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Église Saint-Paul

Quai Mullenheim
67000 Strasbourg, Quartier des XV
Grand Est, France
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Strasbourg St Paul septembre 2015 (recadré)
Strasbourg St Paul septembre 2015 (recadré)
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Saint Stephen's Church, Strasbourg
Saint Stephen's Church, Strasbourg

Saint Stephen’s Church (French: Église Saint-Étienne) in Strasbourg is located inside the catholic ‘Saint-Étienne’ college in Strasbourg, for which it serves as a chapel. Saint Stephen's is one of the oldest churches in Strasbourg. The crypt contains the remains of a fifth-century Roman basilica. The site was originally occupied by a Roman fort. A new church was built on the site in early in 717 by Duke Adalbert of Alsace, brother of Saint Odile, as part of a new convent, in which he installed his daughter Attala as the first abbess. The Church also served for many years as the episcopal seat for the north of Alsace. The church was rebuilt in 1220 in Romanesque-Gothic style. At the beginning of the 16th century, St Stephen's was a parish church, the parish of Stephen's being one of the nine parishes of Strasbourg. In 1534, as the reform was being introduced in Strasbourg, the parish of St Stephen's was transferred to St William's, on account of the opposition of the cannonesses of St Stephen's to the new teaching. In the seventeenth century Louis XIV closed the abbey and transferred it to the Visitandines to serve as a boarding school for young women, a function which continued up until the French Revolution. In 1714 the church was equipped with an organ by Andreas Silbermann, which is now in Bischheim. After the French Revolution, the building was used as a warehouse, then as a theatre. In 1802, the church was deprived of its tower and in 1805 this was transformed into a theatre. The college, of which the church now forms part, began life in 1861 as a 'Petit seminaire' (literally 'little seminary'), educating future priests as well as lay students. Allied bombing destroyed much of the building in 1944. Only the wide transept with its triple apse survived. In 1956, the ancient site was excavated and a Merovingian apse was discovered beneath the foundations of the old tower. In 1961, the nave was renovated, exposing the timber structures. The church was classified as a historical monument in 1962. In 2016, the monumental concert organ from the former conservatory located in the National Theatre of Strasbourg was moved into the nave in order to be used as a church organ. The instrument, a 1963 work by organ builder Curt Schwenkedel, had been out of use since 1995. It was entirely restored by Quentin Blumenroeder from Haguenau.As the Church is now part of a school, public access is only possible on special occasions, such as European Heritage Days. The school owns some valuable historical tapestries from the abbey church, some of which can be seen in the nearby Notre Dame museum.