It is a church that vibrates as much as the neighborhood that surrounds it. Saint-Louis d’Antin is a living parish, a place of passage and contemplation, training and prayer. Report in one of the busiest churches in Paris.
Whatever time of day you go there, you are never alone in Saint-Louis d’Antin, a parish located not far from Saint-Lazare station. You can enter it by rue du Havre or rue Caumartin, in a district rich in shops and offices. The contrast between the bustle outside and the peace found inside the church, between two masses, is striking. The atmosphere is conducive to contemplation, as confirmed by Joséphine, who works in a business in the neighborhood and goes there regularly during her lunch break. “Often, I come to deposit my joys and my sorrows in Jesus in the middle of my working day. It may take only ten minutes. But I am always happy to take this spiritual break, to reconnect with God in this beautiful and peaceful place. »
As for Charlotte, a student in the preparatory class at a nearby high school, she goes there once or twice a week before going to class. “This visit to Saint-Louis is a good way to start my day, to offer it to God. There is never better than in a church to pray! Even if this year is sometimes difficult, with the preparation for competitions, it is essential for me to come here to pray or attend a weekday mass. She also evokes one of the side chapels that particularly touches her: that of the statue of the Infant Jesus of Prague, which measures less than 50 centimeters. The devotion to this small statue which embodies the childhood of Christ spread in Europe from the 19th century. For Charlotte, “it’s a way of remembering the simplicity and purity of the child Jesus”. And she’s not the only one to think so, since this little chapel is the busiest in the church.
Masses and confessions in abundance
Seven masses are celebrated there per day on weekdays, and five on weekends. This is the fourth year that Father Antoine Devienne has been pastor of Saint-Louis d’Antin. In his parish mingle the regulars, and those who come especially for confessions or the many masses. “They know they are going to find a priest. It is the parish of Paris in which there are the most confessions, and for a long time. This is precisely what affects them,” he explains. And for good reason, he spends about fourteen hours a week confessing. “This continuous priestly presence attracts the faithful”. Some even come to thank the priests for being there and “doing what they do. »
Defined by its parish priest as a “place of spiritual direction”, the Saint-Louis d’Antin church is not a traditional parish. There are few baptisms and burials, and no weddings. The operation is closer to that of a sanctuary than a traditional church. “We precisely want to develop this attractiveness specific to the sanctuary. ” At the end of the 1950s, the territory of the parish – which had existed since 1802 – was reduced to a trickle, so that there were less than a thousand inhabitants… “Today, the rate of priests per inhabitant is gigantic in Saint-Louis! “. Eight priests, including a student priest, run this dynamic parish.
To imagine the functioning of the parish, mobility in Ile-de-France around the Saint Lazare station was taken into account from the 1950s, as well as the construction of RER lines complementary to the metro. During the confinements and curfews of 2020 and 2021, this particularity had precisely constituted a brake on the influence of the parish. “The impact of the Covid on our parish life has been very strong, since the confinement has made it impossible for 95% of people to move to the church, which has therefore been closed for a time”, explains the priest, who estimates that in 2022, the population still lives in fear. “I see it when wearing a mask in church: while it has not been compulsory for several weeks, one in three worshipers wears it. »
A rich cultural life
Now, the Bernanos Center, created in the parish in 1994, and which offers cultural, more than spiritual, activities to everyone, is restarting. Plays – currently being performed Polyeucte de Corneille – , film screenings, concerts, conferences are all events of Christian inspiration, but which reach an audience that is well beyond practicing Catholics. According to Father Devienne, there is a difficulty in bringing together the two populations, those who go to church and those who go to the Bernanos centre. His wish is precisely to achieve more exchanges between these two audiences.
Funny detail, a little over 150 years ago, in August 1871, Marcel Proust was baptized in Saint-Louis-d’Antin. But in this church, time is neither lost nor, a fortiori, found again. He is stretched. The dynamism in the organization of confessions and the Eucharist, and its wide opening hours make it a unique place in Paris. A praying lighthouse in the effervescence of the Chaussée d’Antin.
This parishionerless parish that sees thousands of people pass by every day