Cambrai Cathedral (french: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Grâce de Cambrai) is a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

church located in

Cambrai Cambrai (, ; pcd, Kimbré; nl, Kamerijk), formerly Cambray and historically in English Camerick or Camericke, is a city in the Nord department and in the Hauts-de-France region of France on the Scheldt river, which is known locally as the Esca ...

, Nord, France, and is the seat of the Archbishop of Cambrai. The

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the ''cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominatio ...

was registered as a '' monument historique'' on 9 August 1906. It was built between 1696 and 1703, on the site of a former 11th-century building, as the church of the Abbey of Saint-Sépulcre. During the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

the old cathedral of Cambrai was destroyed, but the abbey church survived because it was used instead as a Temple of Reason. When the ecclesiastical status of Cambrai was restored in 1802, albeit as a diocese rather than as an archdiocese, which it had previously been, the bishop's seat was established in the surviving abbey church, which became the cathedral of Cambrai. Cambrai was again constituted an

archbishopric In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

in 1841. The cathedral was severely damaged by fire in 1859, but at length restored, with advice from Viollet-le-Duc, and consecrated on 12 May 1894. It was raised to the status of a

basilica minor In the Catholic Church, a basilica is a designation given by the Pope to a church building. Basilicas are distinguished for ceremonial purposes from other churches. The building need not be a basilica in the architectural sense (a rectangular b ...

Pope Leo XIII Pope Leo XIII ( it, Leone XIII; born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci; 2 March 1810 – 20 July 1903) was the head of the Catholic Church from 20 February 1878 to his death in July 1903. Living until the age of 93, he was the second-old ...

on 17 March 1896.Archidiocesan website
/ref> It was also badly damaged in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

and, not so seriously, in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. It contains the tomb, by David d'Anger, of

François Fénelon François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon (), more commonly known as François Fénelon (6 August 1651 – 7 January 1715), was a French Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and writer. Today, he is remembered mostly as the author of ''The ...

, who was archbishop from 1696 to 1715. The Cathedral is a minor pilgrimage site because of the noted

Italo-Byzantine Italo-Byzantine is a style term in art history, mostly used for medieval paintings produced in Italy under heavy influence from Byzantine art. It initially covers religious paintings copying or imitating the standard Byzantine icon types, but pa ...

painting known as the Cambrai Madonna or Our Lady of Cambrai (c. 1340) in a side chapel. The cathedral now takes its dedication name "Notre-Dame de Grâce" or " Virgin of Tenderness" from this painting, from the

Eleusa icon The Eleusa (or ''Eleousa''; el, Ἐλεούσα – ''tenderness'' or ''showing mercy'') is a type of depiction of the Virgin Mary in icons in which the Christ Child is nestled against her cheek. In the Western Church the type is often known as t ...

type it exemplifies. In the same chapel is a memorial erected by

Hilaire Belloc Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (, ; 27 July 187016 July 1953) was a Franco-English writer and historian of the early twentieth century. Belloc was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, writer of letters, soldier, and political activist. ...

to commemorate his son who was killed nearby in the last days of World War I.

References

Sources

*Eugène Bouly, ''Histoire de Cambrai et du Cambrésis'', vol. 1, Cambrai, Hattu, Libraire-Éditeur, 1842
version
*Eugène Bouly, ''Histoire de Cambrai et du Cambrésis'', vol. 2, Cambrai, Hattu, Libraire-Éditeur, 1842
version
*Jules Houdoy, ''Histoire artistique de la cathédrale de Cambrai'', Paris: D. Morgand and C. Fatout, 1880
version
*Louis Trenard (dir.) and Charles Pietri, ''Histoire des Pays-Bas Français'', Édouard Privat, coll. "Univers de la France et des Pays francophones / Histoire des Provinces", 1974 (1st ed. 1974) *Louis Trenard (dir.) and Michel Rouche (preface by Jacques Legendre), ''Histoire de Cambrai'', vol. 2, Presses Universitaires de Lille, coll. "Histoire des villes du Nord / Pas-de-Calais", 1982 (1st ed. 1982), 314 p. *Michel Dussart (dir.), ''Mémoire de Cambrai'', Cambrai, Société d'Emulation de Cambrai, 2004, 220 p. *''Revue du Nord'', Louis Trenard (dir.), Université de Lille III, Villeneuve d'Ascq, Tome LVIII no 230, numéro spécial "Cambrai et le Cambrésis", juillet-septembre 1976 *Henri Jenny, ''Cathédrale de Cambrai: l'abbaye du Saint-Sépulcre'', Cambrai, Mallez impr., 1970, 48 p.

External links

LocationArchives of Ontario
{{Authority control Roman Catholic churches completed in 1703

Churches in Nord (French department) Basilica churches in France Cambrai 18th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in France