The Parish of Anse Boileau is 155 years |18 November 2023

The interior of the Notre Dame de Sept Douleurs Church, Anse Boileau (L’évêché Archives of Seychelles)

This year Seychelles is marking many milestone anniversaries. TONY MATHIOT celebrates the 155^th anniversary of one of our earliest parishes.

In the mid-1850s, Anse Boileau was a remote part of West Mahé where the small population of some 400 inhabitants eked out a living as farmers and fishermen. In 1854, shortly after the first Parishes of Anse Aux Pins, La Digue and Baie Ste Anne Praslin had been established in 1853, Father Leon des Avanchers (1825-1879) built a small chapel of wood with a thatched roof of pandanus for inhabitants of Anse Boileau at ‘Pont Baillon’ (named after David Mathurin Baillon who had owned property there in the 1820s). So, for a few years, the inhabitants who had been baptised by Father Leon had the opportunity to be religiously enlightened when Father Theophile Pollar (1809-1908) who resided at Anse aux Pins visited them a few times a year. That little chapel was destroyed by the great cyclone of October 12, 1862 which wrought much havoc on Mahé and on the inlying islands. Another small chapel of wood was built. Six years later, the Apostolic Prefect Mgr. Ignace Galfione decided that the next parish to establish after the Parish of Anse Royale in 1866 should be the Parish of Anse Boileau. Father Martin Vinzier (1836-1909) who had arrived in 1864 built the first church of coral which he consecrated to Notre Dame de Sept Douleurs on June 30, 1868. The land on which the church was built was acquired on August 10, 1869 from the Pool family. Father Martin left Seychelles in 1870. That same year, Father Valentin (1836-1883) was appointed the second Parish Priest of Anse Boileau. During the eight years that he spent there, Father Valentin conducted his pastoral mission with an evangelical zeal and stoutness of purpose that enamoured him divinely with his parishioners. In 1879 he built a presbytery, in 1877 a school for boys and later in 1881 a school for girls. In 1881, he also undertook extensive renovations and modifications to the church among which was the placing of the altar where the door was located. The church had only one nave. There was no belfry. He gave the Parish of Notre Dame de Sept Douleurs its most famous landmark when on February 28, 1882 he erected the Calvary Cross in front of the church, near the sea. He died on June 17, 1883, shortly after having fallen off from his horse. He was buried in the parish cemetery. In 1884, Father Callixte Cachon (1841-1907) arrived at Anse Boileau and he felt that his Parish was the ideal place to dedicate a sanctuary of our Lady of La Salette. This was in honour of an apparition of Mary by two French children, Maximin Giraud (1835-1875) and Mélanie Calvat (1831-1904) on September 19, 1846 in the mountains of La Salette in South Eastern France. The First ‘La Salette’ was a ‘paillotte’ and it was built in 1887. It was then that the parishioners of Anse Boileau began their public devotions and prayers to ‘Notre Dame de La Salette’ that gradually became a national Marian Cult. During the year 1888, the Apostolic Vicar Mgr. Symphorien Mouard (1828-1890) blessed the Parish cemetery where a few long-serving Parish priests would be laid to rest. It would be the last episcopal ceremony he officiated before he left in February 1989. In the early 1850s, some of the first settlers at Anse Boileau had opened their own family cemeteries namely, the Petrousse and the Jouanis families. Until 1880, residents of Baie Lazare were also buried in the Parish cemetery of Anse Boileau.

The Parish of Anse Boileau received its first episcopal visit on April 7, 1883 when Mgr. Symphorien Mouard (1828-1890) accompanied by Father Edmond Dardel (1825-1890) and Brother Didace Meynet (1838-1902) left Victoria at 6am and arrived in the Parish at 9am after a three-hour pedestrian trek! Mgr. Mouard wrote in his journal that ‘La route qui est une des meilleurs des Seychelles serpent d’abord à travers les gorges de la vallée du Barbaron, au milieu de forets épaisses. Nous apercumes une grande croix de bois ornée d’oriflammes rouges et blanches, qui nous indiquait le point d’arrivée’.

Ten years after the visit of Mgr. Mouard, in 1893, the sisters of St. Joseph de Cluny arrived in the Parish to run the mission schools. By then Seychelles had been erected into a Diocese (1892) with Mgr. Marc Hudrisier (1848-1910) as Bishop of Port Victoria.

It was with the arrival of Father Gabriel-Marie Zegler (1867-1934) in 1907 that the actual church of Notre Dames de Sept Douleurs was originally built. The first stone was blessed on September 19, 1909 and a year later the parishioners were receiving sacrements in their new church which offered quite a picturesque sight from the sea.

During its 155 years, the Parish of Anse Boileau has been in the custody of no less than forty priests, among whom two later received Episcopal Consecration in succession. In 1921, Father Ernest Joye (1880-1962) succeeded Father Gabriel-Marie Zegler as the Parish Priest. His legacy in the Parish are supremely recognised by two cherished features. These are the chapel of La Salette which he built in 1925 and the shrine of Cap Ste. Marie in 1931. The other was Father Marcel Olivier Maradan (1899-1975) who arrived in the Parish in 1932. In 1933, he erected the large masonry Calvary cross to replace the one which was made of wood and was in a state of dilapidation.

The event was to commemorate the 19^th centenary of the Redemption, that is the Death and Resurrection of Christ in the year 33. It was the Extraordinaire Jubilee proclaimed by Pius XI since the first one had been announced by sixtus X in 1585. So the Parishioners of Anse Boileau should be historically sensitive that they are the custodians of the Jubilee Cross of the Redemption. During his short period in the parish, Father Olivier attended to the reparation of the church. ‘Important travaux ont été fait dans l’église. Les socles en bois des colonnes ont été remplacés par des socles en beton’. He wrote in his annual report of July 16, 1934. ‘Le choeur a été doté de dalles de ciment rouges briquées ici même’. On December 14, 1933, his predecessor Mgr. Ernest Joye arrived at Anse Boileau to perform his first confirmation ceremony where he confirmed 26 children. This was barely two weeks after he had received his Episcopal Consecration on November 30, 1933. On August 9, 1934, Father Justin Barman (1929-1995 ) succeeded Father Olivier as Parish Priest of Anse Boileau. He also had to do some renovation work to Father Gabriel- Marié’s church which was by then in its third decade. In his report of July 26, 1942, Father Justin wrote ‘La mise en place de l’autel a été faite en 15 jours. La peinture et le blanchissage de l’église ne m’ont couté que Rs 60’. He also built a new presbytery which was blessed by Mgr Maradan on July 5, 1948. Over half a century later in 2001, the vagaries of time and weather had reduced the old church into such a pathetic condition that the parish priest then, the late Father Gustave Lafortune (1936-2023) who spent 18 years at Anse Boileau (1986-2004), was compelled to subject the church to a complete overhaul and enlargement. He was grateful for the grant of some R2 million he got from the government. The comprehensive renovation work which took almost one year to complete eventually endowed the ante-bellum church with an ecclesiastic splendor that overwhelmed even the parishioners themselves. The wood carvings at the new altar were done by Jean Pool, a descendant of Felix Pool, one of the first settlers of Anse Boileau. The La Salette chapel was also rebuilt with a modern architecture. It was blessed on Sunday April 6, 1997 by Mgr. Xavier Barronet (1927-2012).

The first Seychellois priest, Father James Chang-Tave (1918-1981), was the Parish priest of Anse Boileau for almost twenty years (1961-1981). In the psyche of some octogenarian parishioners ‘Per Chang-Tave’ and Anse Boileau are synonyms like ‘Dauban’ and ‘Silhouette’. Since October 1938 two masses used to be held every Sunday and on feast days. On May 10, 1962 Mgr. Maradan gave permission to Father Chang-Tave to introduce a third mass on Sunday, especially for children. So, as of Sunday May 20, 1962, an additional mass at 8.30am was introduced, the other two masses being held at 5.30am and at 8.30am.

Every year, on September 15, which is the date of the patronal feast of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows, the date on which it is liturgically celebrated, the Parish of Anse Boileau is pervaded with religious glee.

On May 21, 2010, the Order of Carmelite (founded in 1209) was officially installed during a mass presided by Mgr. Denis Wiehe in the Anse Boileau Church. Three Reverend Fathers of the Order were assigned to La Salette. Presently, the Parish priest of Anse Boileau is Father Pierre Madiela who was born in Congo, Brazzaville. He arrived in Seychelles on December 2, 2010 and was appointed to serve as residential priest in the Parish of St. Thérèse Plaisance until February 2023. The Seven Sorrows of Our Lady are:

1.         The  prophecy of Simeon
2.         The Flight into Egypt
3.         The Loss of Child Jesus
4.         The Condemnation of Jesus
5.         The Crucifixion of Jesus
6.         The Retrieval of Jesus Body
7.         The Burial of Jesus 

With his ‘Zèle infatigable’ and likeable disposition, Father Pierre has taken custody of Father Martin’s legacy at a moment that can be seen as a good Omen, 155 years after…