Notre Dame d'Afrique ( English: “Our Lady of Africa”) 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 ...

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name ...

in Algiers,

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , religi ...

. Pope Pius IX granted two Pontifical decrees towards the shrine on the same day on 15 April 1876: * The first decree invoked to canonically crown the venerated Marian image enshrined within. The coronation rites was executed by the Archbishop of Carthage

Charles Lavigerie Charles Martial Allemand Lavigerie (31 October 1825 – 26 November 1892) was a French cardinal, archbishop of Carthage and Algiers and primate of Africa. He also founded the White Fathers. A Catholic priest who became a bishop in France, Lavi ...

on 30 April 1876. * The second decree which raised the sanctuary to the status of Basilica based on an "immemorial custom". (

Pope Benedict XV Pope Benedict XV (Ecclesiastical Latin, Latin: ''Benedictus XV''; it, Benedetto XV), born Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, name=, group= (; 21 November 185422 January 1922), was head of the Catholic Church from 1914 until his deat ...

later regulated to limit these privileges in 1918 to Papal edicts unless an ancient custom already refers to a building as a "Basilica".)

History

It was Louis-Antoine-Augustin Pavy, who served as the Bishop of Algiers from 1846 to 1866, who paved the way for its construction. The

was inaugurated in 1872, after fourteen years of construction. It was founded by

. Its architect,

Jean-Eugène Fromageau Jean-Eugène Fromageau (30 March 1822 - 16 October 1897) was a French architect active in French Algeria. He served as the ecclesiastical architect of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Algiers from 1855 to 1870. He designed several church buildin ...

, who had been appointed the chief architect for ecclesiastical buildings in

French Algeria French Algeria (french: Alger to 1839, then afterwards; unofficially , ar, الجزائر المستعمرة), also known as Colonial Algeria, was the period of French colonisation of Algeria. French rule in the region began in 1830 with the ...

in 1859, employed a Neo-Byzantine style. Its floor plan is unusual as the

choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which s ...

is situated on the southeast instead of the usual east side of the building. The basilica contains 46 stained glass windows installed in the 19th century. They were blown out during a bombing of the area in April 1943 and have been restored twice since the end of World War II. In 1930 an organ, built in 1911, was donated to the basilica by the wife of the late Albert Weddell, a wealthy English resident in Algiers at Villa Georges and friend of the French composer

Camille Saint-Saëns Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (; 9 October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Second Piano Concerto ...

who had inaugurated the organ at Weddell's home. The basilica was damaged by the 2003 Boumerdès earthquake. A reconstruction project was initiated by Archbishop Henri Teissier in 2003, but work on the project did not start until the spring of 2007. The total cost of restoration was 5.1 million

euros The euro (symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . Th ...

. The project took three years to complete.

Location

Notre Dame d'Afrique is on the north side of Algiers, on a 124 m (407 ft) cliff overlooking the Bay of Algiers. It formerly could be reached from the

city centre A city centre is the commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely equivalent terms exist in other languages, such as "" in Fren ...

by a

cable car Cable car most commonly refers to the following cable transportation systems: * Aerial lift, such as aerial tramways and gondola lifts, in which the vehicle is suspended in the air from a cable ** Aerial tramway ** Chairlift ** Gondola lift ** ...

. It can be considered to be the counter-piece to the church of

Notre-Dame de la Garde Notre-Dame de la Garde (literally: Our Lady of the Guard), known to local citizens as ''la Bonne Mère'' (French for 'the Good Mother'), is a Catholic basilica in Marseille, France, and the city's best-known symbol. The site of a popular Assump ...

on the other side of the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on th ...

Importance

Its symbolic and religious importance can be summed up by the inscription on the

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...

: ''Notre Dame d'Afrique priez pour nous et pour les Musulmans'' ("Our Lady of Africa, pray for us and for the Muslims").

Gallery

File:Notre Dame d'Afrique 2010.jpg, File:Algiers_Notre_Dame_d%27Afrique.jpg, File:NOTRE DAME D'AFRIQUE.ALGER.jpg, File:Our Lady of Bab el Oued - Algiers.jpg, File:Notre Dame d'Afrique a Alger en 2010.jpg, File:Basilique Notre Dame d'Afrique.JPG,

References

External links

The Cemetery, with Chapel, Algiers, Algeria
{{DEFAULTSORT:Notre Dame d'Afrique Basilica churches in Algeria Buildings and structures in Algiers Byzantine Revival architecture in Algeria French colonial architecture Roman Catholic churches completed in 1872 Tourist attractions in Algiers 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Algeria