Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Angers, Religious heritage site in Angers, France

The Saint-Sépulcre d'Angers is a memorial, not a consecrated church, built in reinforced concrete between 1931 and 1935. It consists of a 24-metre-diameter rotunda topped by a dome, with a gallery running around it. Inside, a replica of the Jerusalem edicule, 8.25 metres long and 5 metres high, encloses the tomb of Christ. The exterior has sixteen niches, seven of which hold statues, including one of Peter the Hermit above the entrance.

Monseigneur Henri Potard, born in 1866 and leader of seventy-two pilgrimages to Palestine, built this memorial on his family property between 1931 and 1935, bringing back most of the materials and objects used to decorate it. It is a memorial, not a consecrated church, and the Servantes des pauvres d'Angers, founded in 1872 by dom Camille Leduc, have maintained it and opened it to visitors.

The memorial is not a consecrated church but a mémorial, maintained and opened to visitors by the Servantes des pauvres d'Angers, a congregation founded in 1872 by dom Camille Leduc and based next door. Inside, the chapel facing the edicule reproduces the Greek choir of the Jerusalem basilica, with a mother-of-pearl Stations of the Cross carved by Bethlehem Christians and an altar stone used for Easter Mass at the Holy Sepulchre itself.

The memorial stands on rue de Ballée in the Justices district, reached through a monumental slate-schist portal with two crenellated neo-Gothic towers and an alley lined with cedars of Lebanon, so it is barely visible from the street. Visits are organised by the Servantes des pauvres congregation next door. The iron cross that once crowned the dome was taken down because its concrete base had deteriorated.

The tomb slab inside is 12 cm thick and weighs 600 kg, polished by Christians of Jerusalem before being brought to Angers. Copper lamps and menorahs came from Palestine too, and fragments of rock from the Nativity grotto, Nazareth and Gethsemane sit on the marble benches.