Notre-Dame des Neiges (French for "Our Lady of the Snows") is a church in the municipality of

Alpe d'Huez L'Alpe d'Huez () is a ski resort in southeastern France at . It is a mountain pasture in the Central French Western Alps, in the commune of Huez, which is part of the department of Isère in the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. It is part of th ...

, built in the twentieth century and dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

History

A small chapel, built in 1940, situated in the center of the Alpe d'Huez, was initially dedicated to the Marian cult. In 1960, the priest, Jaap Reuten, asked Jean Le Boucher and architect Jean Marol to build a church-shaped tent, representing Abraham, the first Biblical patriarch, to replace the chapel with a structure visible from the Meije, in preparation for the Olympic Games of 1968. Stained glass windows surround the nave, oval, representing the life of Jesus Christ according to the

Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark), or simply Mark (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). is the second of the four canonical gospels and of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to h ...

, made by the artist Arcabas. The church holds a

crypt A crypt (from Latin ''crypta'' "vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, sarcophagi, or religious relics. Originally, crypts were typically found below the main apse of a chur ...

dedicated to

St Nicolas Saint Nicholas of Myra, ; la, Sanctus Nicolaus (traditionally 15 March 270 – 6 December 343), also known as Nicholas of Bari, was an early Christian bishop of Greek descent from the maritime city of Myra in Asia Minor (; modern-day Demre ...

and in the choir, there is a

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...

, whose organ case is in the shape of hand. The instrument was designed by the composer

Jean Guillou Jean Victor Arthur Guillou (18 April 1930 – 26 January 2019) was a French composer, organist, pianist, and pedagogue. Titular Organist at Saint Eustache in Paris, from 1963 to 2015, he was widely known as a composer of instrumental and vocal ...

, and built by the German organ builder

Detlef Kleuker Detlef Kleuker (4 July 1922 in Flensburg - 15 February 1988 in Brackwede) was a German organ builder who founded Detlev Kleuker Orgelbau. Hans-Detlef Kleuker studied building organs at Emanuel Kemper in Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ) ...

. The church depends on the parish of St. Bernard en Oisans and the

Diocese of Grenoble-Vienne The Roman Catholic Diocese of Grenoble–Vienne-les-Allobroges (Latin: ''Diocesis Gratianopolitana–Viennensis Allobrogum''; French: ''Diocèse de Grenoble–Vienne-les-Allobroges'') is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church i ...

. It is managed administratively and culturally by the Association of Our Lady of the Snows.

References

External links

* {{in lang, fr}
Association of Our Lady of the Snows
Buildings and structures in Isère Churches in Isère

History

References

Further reading

External links