SACRE-COEUR BASILICA Paris (the Sacred Heart Basilica)

If you stay in Paris for a couple of days, the Sacred Heart Basilica should certainly be in your tour-list.

Sacre-Coeur Basilica

Built between 1875 and 1914 on the hill of martyrs or Monmartre, the Basilica was consecrated in 1919. The place is also known for the first bishop of Paris, Saint Denis, who was decapitated for his faith in the third century A.D.E. For more than 125 years the Sacred Heart Basilica is a unique place of perpetual Eucharistic adoration, night and day, in Monmartre.

Sacre-Coeuer Basilica in Paris

Interesting facts about the Sacred Heart Basilica

• The cost of construction was to be paid by the faithful through an initial subscription allowing each subscriber to buy one stone. Depending on how much had been paid, a stone was inscribed with the donor’s initials.

• Saint Denis is the patron saint of Paris along with Sainte Genevieve. After being decapitated Saint Denis is believed to stand up, lift his head from the ground and walked with it 6 km. Today the place which his beheaded body reached after the execution is known as the Saint Denis Basilica.

• Guides may show you the statue inside the Basilica, which leg can be touched in order to come back to the Basilica in future. A kind of a “good luck” ritual.

About the building

the Sacred Heart of Christ, Paris

The building of Sacre-Coeur is 85 m long, 83.33 m high and 35 m wide. It stands on the highest point of Paris, where at the time of the Roman Empire gladiatorial fights took place. The Sacre-Coeur Basilica was constructed in Chateau-Landon stone. On contact with rainwater the stone secretes a white substance named lime. That gives the Basilica its ever-white gorgeous appearance. Romano-Byzantine features, the dome (open to tourists), statues of saints, a large pipe organ make the Basilica unforgettable.