Following the major demolition of the previous church, built in 1610, and at the request of the parishioners of Croix de Vie, on 10 March 1895, the Bishop of Luçon gave his approval for the construction of a new Catholic church. Work began around 1895.
Address :
Place Guy Kergoustin
85800 SAINT-GILLES-CROIX-DE-VIE
FRANCE
Presentation of: EGLISE SAINTE CROIX
Initially, only the church buildings were erected, before the bell tower was added at the end of 1897, thanks to a loan of 10,000 francs. The whole, in the "Romanesque-Byzantine" style, was built according to the plans of M. Menard, an architect from Nantes. The monumental pulpit is a real eye-catcher. A cherub above the staircase gives us its date of birth: 1896. Its creator was a local stonemason, A. Léon des Ormeaux. His portrait and coat of arms are on the staircase, above a picture of the port of Croix de Vie, with the steeples of St-Gilles and Ste-Croix in the background. This pulpit is inhabited by a host of characters and symbolic figures.
