Châlons Cathedral, Gothic Catholic cathedral in Châlons-en-Champagne, France.

Châlons Cathedral is a Gothic structure with pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and buttresses that support its stone walls. Large stained glass windows flood the interior with colored light throughout the day.

A Romanesque cathedral rebuilt from about 1120 under Bishop William of Champeaux was consecrated by Pope Eugene III on 26 October 1147. After a fire in 1230, architects adopted the Rayonnant Gothic style, adding radiating chapels and an ambulatory between 1280 and 1310. The nave was continued at the end of the 15th century, and the Baroque west façade was built between 1628 and 1634 to designs by Claude Monnart.

The south aisle holds a series of stained glass from the late 15th and early 16th centuries, while the opposite aisle has 19th-century windows made in the 13th-century style. The south transept windows date from the 20th century. Engraved funeral slabs from the 13th to 17th centuries are set into the paving or placed along the walls.

The cathedral stands in the middle of the old town, next to the rue de Marne, one of the two streets that crossed the Gallo-Roman city. The 19th-century restorations removed the side chapels and the spires raised after 1668, so the nave now reads as a single continuous space. Look for the stone rose with the date 1668, a trace of the lightning strike that destroyed the north tower's spire.

The north tower once carried a timber and lead spire over 80 metres high. Lightning struck it on 19 January 1668; the burning spire fell onto the apse and broke through the vault, which had to be rebuilt — a stone rose in the vault bears the date 1668. Two thirds of the crypt were filled in to shore up the pillars, and the cathedral has had no spire since the 19th-century restorations.