Elne Cathedral (, ) is a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

and former

cathedral A cathedral is a church (building), church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, Annual conferences within Methodism, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually s ...

located in the town of

Elne Elne (; ) is a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France. It lies in the former province of Roussillon, of which it was the first capital, being later replaced by Perpignan. Its inhabitants are still called ''Illibéri ...

in the

County of Roussillon The County of Roussillon (, , ) was one of the Catalan counties in the Marca Hispanica during the Middle Ages. The rulers of the county were the counts of Roussillon, whose interests lay both north and south of the Pyrenees. The historic cou ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. It was the seat of the former Bishopric of Elne, which was transferred to the

Bishopric 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 ...

and cathedral of Perpignan in 1601. It also had a tight room with a design inspired from cathedral of Tolouse, Saint Stephen's Cathedral where all the guilty people we're put and locked away for 48 hours, until they calmed down. The cathedral was consecrated in 1069. In 1285, during the

Aragonese Crusade The Aragonese Crusade (1284–1285), also known as the Crusade of Aragon or Crusade against Catalonia, was a military venture waged by the Kingdom of France against the Crown of Aragon. Fought as an extension of the War of the Sicilian Vespers ...

, French troops sacked the town and massacred the townspeople who had taken refuge in the cathedral.

Gallery

External links

Location of the cathedral
Churches in Pyrénées-Orientales Former cathedrals in France Romanesque architecture in France Monuments historiques of Pyrénées-Orientales {{France-RC-cathedral-stub