Churches in Paris and elsewhere

  Informations en français Information in English Information in Russian When I came to visit this church it was in the middle of a major renovation of the outside, which is a chance to explain a few things about churches in France for people who come from elsewhere. At the beginning of the 20th century there were laws and negotiations sorted to deal with relations between the State and the ( pretty powerful) Catholic Church. One of the decisions is that all churches built before 1905 would become the property of the local government, who would lease them free of charge to the parishes (the cathedrals became the property of the national government). One of the advantages for the Church is that, as I understand it, repair and renovation is a government responsibility. We can see this in some of the signs on the outside of the church, shown below. There is a non-religious tone to some of them ("a new church for a new neighbourhood!"). Such historic monuments are now allowed to

 Information in English Saint-Germain_l%27Auxerrois Information in French  Eglise_Saint-Germain-l%27Auxerrois_de_Paris  Information in Spanish  Iglesia_de_Saint-Germain-l%27Auxerrois_de_Par%C3%ADs  Information  in Chinese   https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Just across the road from the Louvre museum, I bet this church is often missed. But it is well worth a visit. The "Father of French journalism" is buried here : he died in 1653, and there is still a  literary award named after him.  ( see  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A9ophraste_Renaudot  ) There is also a very pretty "VIP pew" in here, and a lovely wall collection box. The first church on the site was destroyed by the Vikings in the 9th century. The present one almost got demolished in the 19th century renovation of  Paris. Apparently, the bells of this church were used to call people to attack the protestants on the night of the terrible Saint Barthelemew massacre in 1572. ( St. Bartholomew's Day massac