Seven Saints chapel, Pilgrimage chapel and dolmen in Le Vieux-Marché, France
The Seven Saints Chapel is a pilgrimage chapel from the early 18th century in the village of Le Vieux-Marché, Brittany, perched on a hillside above the Léguer valley. It has a Latin cross floor plan, a small bell tower, and is enclosed within a stone precinct.
The chapel was built in 1703 on the site of an older place of worship that had itself been established around a prehistoric dolmen. Monks traveling inland from the port of Yaudet along the Léguer river are said to have first Christianized the dolmen and dedicated it to the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.
The chapel hosts an annual pardon ceremony every fourth Sunday of July, drawing Christian and Muslim pilgrims together to the same site. At the fountain, an imam recites a passage from the Quran alongside a Christian mass, making this one of the rare gatherings of its kind in Europe.
The chapel is in Le Vieux-Marché, a small village most easily reached by car since public transport in the area is limited. Crowds are largest in July during the annual pardon, so visiting on other days offers a quieter experience of the site.
Directly beneath the chapel floor sits a prehistoric dolmen whose stones were reused to build the structure above it. Inside the dolmen, rough 18th-century statues show the seven saints lying down, as though asleep, mirroring the legend of the Seven Sleepers.
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