100 Churches in Paris and elsewhere

  105 Lille SS Peter and Paul Very nice janitor lady who delayed her lunch so that I   could look round. Confessionals actually built into the walls of the church   - it’s the first time I’ve seen that.  The church is built in red br ick and boasts a beautiful lectern and altar table. Built in the mid 19th century by architect Pierre Caloine. It was damaged in both world wars. Its crypt has been transformed into a hall for local fencing clubs.  Also in the hurch you can see  a grand painting of the conversion of St Paul on the road to Damascus. Paul gets struck blind, and only gets his sight back when he is baptized. But he figures this is fair enough, because salvation etcetera.

  Saint Peter the Younger protestant church is not named after a different Saint Peter who was younger than the guy with the big keys ! It is just that it was built when there was already a Saint Peter’s church in Strasbourg, and so when it was finished the other church became Saint Peter the older (Saint Pierre le vieux). This latter is sadly in disrepair and closed now. Just to confuse the tourist even more there is another St Peter the Younger a couple of hundred yards away, which is a Catholic chuch. So, here’s the story : the congregation of Saint Peter the Younger, in the early sixteenth century, decided to follow the cool influencer Martin Luther and his Reformation deal, so the parish became protestant. A good time later, when the Catholics and Protestants had decided to live in relative calm together, the king was concerned about the lack of enough Catholic churches in Strasbourg. So this church was divided in two : one chunk being used by the Catholics and ...