Église Notre Dame Saint-Vincent, Roman Catholic church in 1st arrondissement, Lyon, France
Église Notre Dame Saint-Vincent is a church in Lyon's 1st arrondissement distinguished by eighteen cylindrical columns running through its nave. The structure showcases large rectangular windows set into the dome and a front facade adorned with a statue of the Virgin Mary.
Augustinian monks, present in the area since 1319, replaced their ruined convent chapel with this church; the first stone was laid on 6 October 1759 to plans by Léonard Roux, and it was consecrated on 4 June 1789 by Joseph Janin. It was first called Saint-Louis after the Dauphin Louis, who had helped finance the building. In 1863 it took the name Notre-Dame-Saint-Vincent to avoid confusion with the Notre-Dame Saint-Louis church in La Guillotière.
The porch statues by Charles Dufraine recall the church's successive names: Saint Louis on the right, Saint Vincent on the left, with a frieze of music-making angels around a Virgin and Child niche. The door tympanum holds a Florentine-style ceramic of two angels adoring a cross. Since 1996 the choir displays J.F. Hamelin's triptych Lumière d'Emmaüs and an Annunciation.
The church is at 58 quai Saint-Vincent, between rue des Augustins downstream and rue Thimonnier upstream, in the 1st arrondissement. The porch is offset from the building axis to follow the quay line, so the entrance does not sit centred on the nave. The parish is now run with priests of the Emmanuel community.
In 1941, Lyon Catholics, Protestants and agnostics met fortnightly in the church crypt to discuss Hitler's Mein Kampf. The Merklin organ destroyed in the 1987 fire was replaced by a 31-stop, two-manual instrument by R. Freytag and B. Aubertin, inaugurated on 26 March 1995.
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