150 Churches in Paris and elsewhere

  My rambling club took me to this place an hour's drive from Paris. Slightly exceptional post, because I usually visit functioning churches full of liturgical furniture, noticeboards and statues. This is a disused abbey, which actually was bought by a wealthy family who are having it done up, but who sometimes allow heritage groups and rambling clubs to have a gander. Set up by the then fashionableCistercians in the twelfth century, it had a rough time during the hundred years’ war. The abbey used to be really rich and own thousands of acres, vineyards, mills etc. The monks’ living quarters, dormitory, sacristy etc are still standing. Be careful, some of the "stained glass" photographed here is fake, made for a film set.

Zurich, Switzerland, Grossmünster and tingly Zwingli Twelfth to fifteenth  century Romanesque church in local sandstone. Big. Fabulous doorpanels with scenes from the Bible and quotes from Jesus in monumental, chiseled, sans-serif typeface. Lovely modern stained glass, and bas reliefs of the evangelists. I was there on, if not for, the 500th anniversary of the Zurich disputations, which were a series of public debates held in this church in order to decide how Protestant the town was going to be. These were carried out in German, so all the townspeople could understand. In the first disputation, the Catholics lost (their line was “only the Pope and his mates can decide this, let’s go for a pint instead). After that the town council decreed that all preaching in the city must be based only on the Bible (so no more Lenten fasts, clerical celibacy or golden chalices). The second disputation cut down on statues a lot, and the third decided baptizing babies was okay. Normally in neigbou...