Holy Genevieve

See also: Holy-Genevieve

Genevieve (Nanterre, 423 - Paris, 502 or 512 according to the sources), virgin and Holy E Catholic French.

Of frank father and Gallo-Roman mother, it is dedicated very young person to God and is very quickly noticed by saint Germain of Auxerre and holy Loup of Troyes, which passes by Nanterre in 429 (see history of Église Saint-Germain-to-Charonne), at the time of their voyage towards Large the Brittany. It carries out a consecrated life and ascetic, probably as of its sixteen years.

According to the tradition, in 451, thanks to her strength of character, Genevieve convinces the inhabitants of Paris not to give up their city with the Huns and it diverts the anger of Attila by his prayers, and incidentally thanks to the solids walls of the city. Another assumption on this subject claims that she would have informed the invader of an epidemic of Choléra prevailing in the area. Lastly, by its bonds with the Francs, integrated into the Roman device, it could have known that Attila wanted to attack initially the Visigoths in Aquitaine, and did not want to undoubtedly waste time in front of Paris.

It makes build a church on the site of the tomb of holy Denis, first bishop of Lutèce.

She also convinces Clovis, of which she was always a partisane, to make set up a church dedicated to S. Pierre and Paul on the mountain which bears today its name (Montagne Holy-Genevieve), in the V {{E}} district of Paris, in the middle of the Latin Quarter of Paris. She dies in 512, at the 89 years age, in the hermitage of Paris, and is buried in this same church at the sides of Clovis and is joined later by the queen Clotilde, her more famous disciples. The church is initially entrusted to Bénédictin S, then with secular Chanoine S: it is the Abbaye Holy-Genevieve of Paris, whose bell-tower is still visible in the enclosure of the Lycée Henri-Iv (this bell-tower is known under the name of " Clovis" turn;). The mounting is honoured in the church Saint-Etienne-of-Mount, close to the the Pantheon of Paris. It is about a new hunting, the old one having been molten in 1793. It does not contain any more remainders of Genevieve, those having been flarings Place of Strike at the same time.

Genevieve is regarded by the catholics as the holy owner of Paris, of the Diocèse of Nanterre, it is celebrated by them the January 3rd. The French National police, of which it is also the holy owner, the festival, as for it, the November 26th, date of the “Miracle of burning”.

Representation - Iconography

Until XVIe century, Genevieve is represented vêtue of a noble dress of young girl, holding with the hand a candle that a demon tries to extinguish (to remember it the construction of the first basilica of St Denis, of which she visited the building site, of night, with its companions). At the end of XVe century, it is then represented like a young shepherdess surrounded by sheep, perhaps by confusion with Jeanne d' Arc and the representations of pastourelles virgins.

To the XIXe century, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes devotes a cycle of paintings to the childhood of Genevieve (1874) to the the Pantheon of Paris.

See too

Sanctoral roman catholic
private College Holy-Genevieve, with Versailles
Holy-Genevieve-and-Saint-Maurice Cathedral of Nanterre
'' the-France-orthodoxe.net ''
'' Photo of the Holy church Genevieve in Bordeaux '' (in)

References

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