Église Saint-Hippolyte de Thonon-les-Bains, Catholic church in Thonon-les-Bains, France

Église Saint-Hippolyte de Thonon-les-Bains is a baroque Catholic church in the center of the town. Its exterior has carved stone details, and inside a high stucco vault and painted walls from different periods lead to a Romanesque crypt below the main floor.

The church was first built in the 12th century, then modified when a Romanesque crypt was added two hundred years later. In the 17th century it received its baroque interior, and the building gained protected status as a classified historical monument in 1909.

The nave walls carry a fresco on the theme of the Creed, and the choir is painted with scenes from the life of Christ. The stucco vault was commissioned in the 17th century by Abbot de Rossillon de Bernex, brother of the Bishop of Geneva, and executed by hand by the stuccatori J.F. Silva and Bernard Pandolph. Frescoes were uncovered and restored in October 1941 by the painter-sculptor Henri Lafitte.

The church is easy to reach on foot from the town center, with a flat approach and a main entrance directly from the street. Inside, the floor is mostly level, though the crypt has steps and narrow passages that require good lighting and a careful pace.

The crypt under the main church is the oldest part visitors can enter, with heavy stone arches that feel completely different from the decorated nave above. During the Bernese invasion of 1536, the building was used as a Protestant temple before returning to Catholic worship decades later, a shift that few visitors notice from the present-day ornamentation.