Phone +32 4 232 61 31 | ||
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Address Place de la Cathédrale 6, 4000 Liège, Belgium Similar Saint Lambert's Cathedral, Eglise Saint‑Jacques, Trésor de Liège, Collegiate Church of St Bartho, Curtius Museum | ||
Top 15 tourist attractions in liege travel belgium
Liège Cathedral, otherwise St. Paul's Cathedral, Liège, in Liège, Belgium, is the seat of the Diocese of Liège.
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St. Paul's Cathedral
During the French Revolution the ancient cathedral of Liège, St. Lambert's Cathedral, was destroyed systematically, from 1794 onwards. After the revolutionary fervour had evaporated a new cathedral was needed. The ancient collegiate church of St. Paul's was thought suitable for the purpose and was elevated in rank, before 1812. This is the present Liège Cathedral.
History
The present cathedral of Liège was originally one among the seven collegiate churches of the city.
It was founded in the 10th century, reconstructed between the 13th and 15th centuries, and restored in the mid-19th century.
It became the cathedral of Liège in the first years of the 19th century as the replacement for the destroyed St. Lambert's Cathedral.
In 1812, further to a request from Napoléon Bonaparte, the tower, with its ogival windows, was raised by a storey and the belltower installed.
Building
The apse, constructed in the 14th century in the Rayonnant style, is pentagonal. The choir, the transept, the main nave and the side naves date from the 13th century and have all the characteristics of Gothic architecture of that period. Later Gothic architecture occurs in the windows of the transept and of the nave, the side chapels and the tower. The upper gallery is modern, as is the storey with the ogival windows and the spire of the belltower. The lintel of the portal bears an inscription, formerly on the city seal: Sancta Legia Ecclesiae Romanae Filia ("Holy Liège, daughter of the Roman church").