Église Saint-Nicolas-le-Thaumaturge de Boulogne-Billancourt, Russian Orthodox church in Boulogne-Billancourt, France
The église Saint-Nicolas-le-Thaumaturge is a Russian Orthodox church in Boulogne-Billancourt, a suburb west of Paris. It sits at the back of a small passageway behind modern apartment buildings, marked on the outside by a blue onion dome and a simple entrance topped with an icon of Saint Nicholas.
After the Russian Revolution, many exiles settled in Boulogne-Billancourt to work in the Renault factories, forming a community that first held services in a restaurant and later in a converted barracks. A small wooden church was built in 1927 and consecrated in 1930, but it was severely damaged by bombs in 1943 and replaced by the current brick building, completed in 1953.
Services are held in Church Slavonic, an ancient liturgical language still used in Orthodox worship today. Many worshippers travel from far away to attend, finding in this small church a place where their faith and memory remain alive.
The church is easy to miss because it sits behind modern buildings, so look for the small passageway that leads to it. Sunday services are a good time to see the interior, though visitors are welcome to stop in outside of worship hours as well.
The iconostasis inside was made by Valentin Zvetchinsky, a Russian emigrant artist who worked in France during the exile period. Many of the icons and religious objects were saved from the damaged building in 1943 and are still present in the church today.
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