Description
Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre is one of the oldest churches in Paris, a small Gothic church in the Latin Quarter, just across the Seine from Notre-Dame. Begun around 1170, since 1889 it has belonged to the Melkite Greek Catholics, an Eastern church in union with Rome.
Inside, the vaults and pillars echo Notre-Dame, built at the same time. The capitals are carved with water lilies and, on one 12th-century column, harpies, half-woman and half-bird. Across the choir stands a carved wooden iconostasis made in 1890 by a craftsman from Damascus.
"The poor" in its name refers to the modesty of the building: it was never finished as planned and ended up smaller. For three centuries its parishioners included the university's students and scholars, among them Dante and Thomas Aquinas.
In the garden next door, Square René Viviani, grows the oldest tree in Paris, a locust planted in 1602.
Inside, the vaults and pillars echo Notre-Dame, built at the same time. The capitals are carved with water lilies and, on one 12th-century column, harpies, half-woman and half-bird. Across the choir stands a carved wooden iconostasis made in 1890 by a craftsman from Damascus.
"The poor" in its name refers to the modesty of the building: it was never finished as planned and ended up smaller. For three centuries its parishioners included the university's students and scholars, among them Dante and Thomas Aquinas.
In the garden next door, Square René Viviani, grows the oldest tree in Paris, a locust planted in 1602.