Temple Grignan, Protestant church in 6th arrondissement, Marseille, France.
Temple Grignan opens onto rue Grignan through a Doric portico of four fluted columns with plain capitals, topped by an unadorned pediment and a frieze of triglyphs, metopes and dentils. Inside, a basilical hall closed by an apse is flanked by two superimposed galleries on Doric colonnades; twelve columns support the flat coffered ceiling, whose central section admits zenith light.
In 1822 the Reformed community bought a wing of the former hôtel Payan on rue Grignan, on the site of the hôtel de Foresta-Collonge where the comte de Grignan had stayed. Plans by Michel-Robert Penchaud included a free school, and the temple was inaugurated on 9 October 1825, the first non-Catholic religious building in Marseille. Henri-Jacques Espérandieu added a gallery level in 1868.
Rue Grignan was nicknamed the "street of tolerance" because it held a Catholic church, this Protestant temple and Marseille's great synagogue. A plaque inside recalls the second unofficial general synod of the Reformed Church of France, held here from 18 to 26 October 1881. Services are held on Sundays at 10:30, and the building also hosts concerts and lectures.
The temple is at 15 rue Grignan in the Vieux-Port district, in Marseille's 6th arrondissement. Services are held on Sundays at 10:30, and the building also hosts concerts and conferences. The entrance is through the Doric portico on the street; the doors are set behind a low iron fence with vertical bars.
The original prayer hall held roughly 850 people before a redesign nearly doubled its capacity in the 1860s. This expansion reveals how rapidly the Protestant congregation was growing during that era.
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