The Church of Baie Lazare is 70 years |16 September 2023

Father Lambert with the old church in the background

On September 17, 2023 the church of St. François d’Assise at Baie Lazare celebrates its 70^th anniversary. Tony Mathiot tells the story of this iconic religious feature.

‘Le monument du centenaire’ is what Father Lambert Noel (1910-1990) called the ecclesiastic edifice that he wanted to build for the parish of Baie Lazare before the end of the year 1953 which would mark the centennial anniversary of the arrival of the first two Catholic missionaries in Seychelles, Father Jeremie Giantommaso (1820-1871) and Father Theophile Pollar (1826-1889).

Indeed, in one of his correspondences to Mgr Olivier Maradan (1899-1975) in 1949 he emphasised that ‘tout le monde veut cette église à St. François pour le Jubilee.’ At that time his parishioners numbered 1,267.

When he arrived in the parish of Baie Lazare in the late 1947 to succeed Father Valere Dousse (1906-1979) who had been the parish priest since 1935, Father Lambert immediately decided that a new and bigger church was needed. The church he inherited had been built since 1895 by Father Venance Bozet (1861-1971) on the piece of land that the catholic mission had just acquired from Davies and Morel on August 13, 1895. The church had been rebuilt circa 1910 by Father Chrysostome Bigel (1854-1931) and almost four decades later, the structure of wood had become too cramped, too small although still in good condition. It was the fifth house of worship for the parish since its creation in 1888. Until then, small chapels had been built successively in various parts of the Parish: Val Mer, Dan Plato, Dan Gravye. The first parish priest of Baie Lazare was Father Callixte Cachon (1841-19070 who had arrived in Seychelles in 1881 after having spent some years in Brazil. At that time Christians of Baie Lazare were incorporated in the parish of Anse Boileau which had been created in 1868, and where mass was celebrated by Father Martin Christin (1833-1909) in a pavillon known as ‘dans le coin’ which its owner Felix Pool so graciously allowed.

Father Lambert was confident that his parishioners would be generous benefactors to the creation of their church. Indeed, on July 26, 1949, he announced in his report that ‘Le Fonds de la future église est arrivé au montant de 13.500Rps’. However, Mgr. Maradan did not exactly share his priest’s enthusiasm. He was almost in the 13^th year of his episcopacy and was intensely engaged in the construction of various parish schools and churches which had entailed securing heavy loans from the Colonial Government. He was perturbed. ‘Je suis vraiment perplexe…L’église de Baie Lazare n’avait pas été placée dans le plan des constructions urgentes et immédiates’, he wrote to Father Lambert on January 27, 1950. ‘Commencer maintenant la construction de l’église après, sans doute, approbation écrite des plans et du devis, mais que se soit sous votre entière responsabilité et aux frais de la paroisse, si bien que si les fonds devaient être épuisés avant quatre ans, vous ne pourriez pas recourir à la caisse de l’évêché’. The bishop was characteristically unequivocal in his expostulation which he ended with ‘fiat cum beneditione Dei et Episcopali’! (Let it be done with the blessing of God and the bishop!).

On March 1, 1950 preliminary groundwork began under the astute supervision of Brother Pierre-Marie Magnin d’Hauteville (1909-1991) who was architect of the project. Right at the outset, it was decided that the church of Baie Lazare would be gothic and in granite and definitely grandiose! Rocks had to be blasted and carried by ox cart to the construction site. Work was toilsome and strenuous because JCB machines were still unknown in the construction world. On September 21, 1950 Father Lambert informed Mgr. Maradan that he had promised the main benefactors that he would put their names in a box that would be buried beside the first stone. His instructions were that the box should be 25cm long with a diameter of 5cm.

On Sunday October 4, 1950, on the feast of St. François d’Assise, the first stone was blessed by Mgr. Olivier Maradan following which work progressed smoothly. During the entire course of the church’s construction, Father Lambert kept a monthly financial account of all his expenditures, in addition to the amount of contributions received locally and from abroad. His construction workers were mainly labourers, masons, carpenters and a blacksmith. From his report of January 1951 we learn that initially materials bought consisted of limestone (50 boxes), iron (88 kilos), screws (1700) and nails (85 kilos).

On August 1, 1951, he informed the bishop that the walls of the church ‘sont arrivés a mi-hauteur’ and that the parishioners had expressed the wish to place at the side of one of the porches a statue of the bishop ‘cela nous attacherait a une tradition ancienne qui voulait que le nom soit gravés dans l’édifice. Ainsi la statue d’Olivier dirai aux generations future que l’église de St François a été construite sous le fructueux épiscopat de L’Evêque Olivier’.

At the dawn of 1950 while the residents marvelled at the erection of their majestic church, the catholic church of Seychelles was going through an eventful period. On January 1, 1950, the first Seychellois priest, Father James Chang-Tave (1918-1981), was ordained in Rome. On September 9, 1951 the first Capuchin Seychellois priest Father Symphorien Morel (1922-1996) was ordained in Seychelles.

On January 17, 1952, Father Exupere Morard, the parish priest of Grand Anse Praslin, passed away at the age of 50 years and on October 28, 1952, Mgr Olivier Maradan consecrated the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on the centennial anniversary of the erection of the Seychelles Catholic Mission as an Apostolic Prefecture (1852-1952). In July of 1951, a cross was erected at Maravie and an oratory of Notre Dame de Loudres was built at Anse aux Poules Bleues on the property of Mr Henry Laporte.

It is certainly incredible that for the three years that it took, Father Lambert managed to finance the construction of his church with money received from Sunday mass collections, from local donations and from the Swiss missionaries abroad. Miraculous! But then again the parishioners were generous. One plantation owner gave the priest 6000 coconuts which sold for R200.

In his report of September 11, 1953, six days before the consecration, we learn that for the month of August, the Sunday mass collection box had produced R135 while expenditures amounted to R1,964.72. Sunday September 17, 1953 was a rainy day but this did not deter those who wanted to witness a moment of history so that they could recount about it many years later, perhaps even today if on that historic day of 1953 they were members of the church choir.

The catholic clergy from all parishes on Mahé and the inlying islands were present. It was a little after 7.30am when Mgr. Maradan began the ceremony that lasted five hours. ‘Ouvrez-vous, portes éternelles’, the bishop intoned as he knocked three times on the closed doors of the new church with his crosier. During the ceremony which was celebrated by Father Lambert assisted by two former Parish priests of Baie Lazare, Father Simon Ruffieux (1900-1986) and Father Valere Dousse (1906-1979), the relics of St. Fidèle and Ste Fulgientienne were inserted in the altar. This was in accordance with the council of Nicaea in 787 which decreed that every altar should contain a relic.

The church of St. François d’Assise measures 44m in length and 17m wide. The nave is 364m². The choir is 72m² and there are two sacristies measuring 21m² each. A belfry measuring 22m 50cm in height is located between two chapels of which one serves as baptistery and the other contains the staircase that leads to the gallery (la tribune). The church can accommodate 600 people sitting. It was almost a decade later on Sunday August 11, 1963 that the belfry of the church of St. François d’Assise

was blessed by Mgr. Olivier Maradan. This came after the parish received the gift of a new bell from Swiss benefactors. By the year 2004, the iconic feature of Baie Lazare was in need of minor repairs and renovation. The government of Seychelles assisted generously with financial support and the parishioners, like their predecessors fifty-three years before, were zealous in their eagerness to restore their beloved church to its former splendour.

The renovated church of St. François d’Assise was inaugurated on Sunday September 24, 2006 by Mgr. Denis Wiehe. More than a few present that day must have thought about their grandparents who as recognition for their unstinting support in the construction of the church, had their names enshrined in the first stone.

Those who made pecuniary donations were: