Abbatiale Saint-Maurice-d'Agaune, Abbey church in Saint-Maurice, Switzerland
Abbatiale Saint-Maurice-d'Agaune is an abbey church located against a cliff near the road connecting Geneva to the Simplon Pass, with multiple underground archaeological layers revealing centuries of construction. The present building stands farther from the cliff after an avalanche destroyed earlier structures in the early 1600s.
King Sigismund of Burgundy founded the religious complex in 515 at the burial site of Saint Maurice and the Theban Legion martyrs. Over centuries, successive churches were built upon this sacred ground, creating layers of construction from the early Christian period through the Carolingian era.
The abbey introduced a system of continuous chanting in 522 where groups of monks sang psalms around the clock at the tombs of the martyrs. This practice made the site a center for Christian worship and pilgrimage throughout the early medieval period.
Visitors should prepare for narrow underground passages and corridors that connect historical layers from different periods. Taking time to move slowly through the spaces allows for a fuller exploration of the different levels and architectural elements.
Excavations beginning in 1945 revealed a fourth-century baptistry and several Carolingian churches built successively between the 5th and 11th centuries. These findings show how the site was repeatedly rebuilt, layering deep records of religious history on top of one another.
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