The Église Saint-Roch, in the
parish of
Notre-Dame de
Saint-Roch is the largest church in
Quebec City,
Quebec, Canada. It was constructed between 1914 and 1923. It is the fourth successive church of the same name to be constructed at the site.
The church lost its visual dominance of the city after the construction of a mall in 1974. The mall has since been demolished and today the church is at the heart of the revitalisation of the neighbourhood.
History of the parish
An
epidemic hit the colony as the
Recollects were building a
hermitage which was then dedicated to Saint Roch, a
patron saint of ailments, illness and dangers.
Saint Roch is also
invoked against
cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...
, epidemics and
plague, knee and skin problems, and is invoked to help
bachelors, dogs, the
falsely-accused, invalids,
surgeons, and
tile makers.
As the neighbourhood increased in population and activity, a newer, bigger church was needed, one that suited the new centre of Quebec City.
The first
public worship
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...
was held in 1917.
Current building
The design, by the same architects as the
Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré Basilica, combines a
Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
exterior with a
Romanesque Revival interior. The style was inspired by the work of
Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc.
The
steel-framed
Steel frame is a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The developm ...
building is
clad
Cladding is an outer layer of material covering another. It may refer to the following:
*Cladding (boiler), the layer of insulation and outer wrapping around a boiler shell
*Cladding (construction), materials applied to the exterior of buildings
...
in black
granite from nearby
Rivière-à-Pierre
Rivière-à-Pierre is a municipality of the Portneuf Regional County Municipality, in the administrative region of the Capitale-Nationale. This area of the Laurentian Mountains is part of the Batiscanie and has more than 200 lakes. The village ...
and has two 45 metre
steeples.
[
The interior is made of Saskatchewan marble that contains visible ]fossils
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...
.carpentry
Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenters tr ...
and sculpture in the oak furnishing, mosaic in the marble altar, and ironwork. The medieval-style windows show scenes of the New Testament, Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
, scenes from the religious history of Quebec, and scenes from the life of Saint Roch.[ The church contains ]masterpiece
A masterpiece, ''magnum opus'' (), or ''chef-d’œuvre'' (; ; ) in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, ...
s, including the ''Vision de Saint Roch'' by Jacques Blanchard
Jacques Blanchard (1600–1638), also known as Jacques Blanchart, was a French baroque painter who was born in Paris. He was raised and taught by his uncle, the painter (ca. 1560–1630). Jacques’s brother and son, Jean-Baptiste Blanchar ...
, ''La Sainte Famille pendant la fuite en Égypte'' by Hyacinthe Collin de Vermont
Hyacinthe Collin de Vermont (19 January 1693, Versailles – 16 February 1761, Paris) was a French painter.
Collin de Vermont was a pupil of Jouvenet and of Rigaud.Hyacinthe Rigaud was his godfather, and it was from him that he got his first ...
, and two paintings by Antoine Plamondon.[
]
Gallery
File:St Roch Church exterior, Quebec City.JPG, View down Rue Saint-Joseph
File:St Roch Church interior, Quebec City.JPG, Interior
See also
* Blessed Dina Bélanger
References
External links
{{commons category, Église Saint-Roch (Québec)
Église Saint-Roch, Québec
Roman Catholic churches completed in 1923
20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Canada
Gothic Revival church buildings in Canada
Romanesque Revival church buildings in Canada
Roman Catholic churches in Quebec City