A French expert on France’s religious heritage is sounding the alarm that “one mosque is erected every 15 days in France, while one Christian building [church or monument] is destroyed at the same pace.”
Edouard de Lamaze, the president of the Observatoire du patrimoine religieux (Observatory of Religious Heritage) in Paris, is warning French media about “the gradual disappearance of religious edifices in a country” which has long been called the “eldest daughter of the Church.”
His warning followed on an April 15 fire (“deemed accidental”) which destroyed the 16th-century Church of Saint-Pierre in Romilly-la-Puthenaye, Normandy, northern France, exactly two years after the fire that ruined much of Paris’ famous Notre Dame Cathedral.
