Església de Sant Llàtzer, Medieval church building in El Raval, Barcelona, Spain.
Església de Sant Llàtzer is a single-nave Romanesque church with a semicircular apse decorated with lesenes and Lombard arches. Its west façade on Plaça del Pedró has a semicircular-arch doorway, an empty niche and a two-arch wall bell tower. The nave is covered by an 18th-century brick vault, and a square chapel dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre was added on the south side in the same century.
The building was founded in the 12th century under Bishop Guillem de Torroja and originally functioned as part of a hospital complex. Over the centuries the structure underwent changes and gradually moved away from its original medical purpose.
The church takes its name from Saint Lazarus, patron saint of lepers, to whom an altar was dedicated in 1355. A community of women cared for the sick here from the mid-14th century, among them Sança, companion of Saint Bridget in Rome, who brought relics of the saint to Barcelona. Since 1977 neighbours have reopened the building for collective use, and Mass is now held by the Sant'Egidio community.
The church stands on the west side of Plaça del Pedró, its main door facing the square, with the apse opening onto an inner courtyard off Carrer del Carme. It can be visited on weekdays; on Sundays the Sant'Egidio community holds services there. The Raval location is served by the Liceu and L3 metro stops.
The apse was freed in 1954, when architect Adolf Florensa removed the public washhouses built in the courtyard and demolished the false façade Josep Mas i Vila had raised around 1822, exposing the niche above the door. Florensa also added the bell gable that now crowns the façade.
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