L'église de St Rustice, France

Best seen large

St Rustice is best known for its archaeological finds, when in 1834 a vast 4th Gallo-Romaine Villa with 10 bathing rooms was found – the mosaics are now on display in the Musée St Raymond in Toulouse.

The siting of the village here was due to the important trade route along the Roman road from Tolosa to Aginum (Toulouse to Agen).

The village is named after St Rusticus, bishop of Cahors, who was martyred in 630 AD, the first church was founded here in the 8th century – The Church of St Pierre de Sylva Agra. There is a holy relic in the new church, claimed to be the remains of St Rusticus.

The church was ceded to the Monastery at Moissac, later in 817 to le Mas D’Azil (Ariège), then back to Moissac in 1107.

The church was rebuilt in 1000AD to thank God for saving the people from the impending catastrophe, predicted by the ancient scribes, much as many medieval churches were.

The church was burnt and looted by Calvanists in 1567.
It was then rebuilt in 1615 with cut stone and the traditional pink bricks, famous throughout the region.

There was a holy spring set under the altar of the church, which was said to produce healing and miracles, which was shut off by order of Colbert in 1680 and a sacristy was built over it.

The new church (La nouvelle église) shown here was edified in 1863 is a complete reconstruction of the old church, apart from the two towers, which are quite unique. The first plans for the church were rejected as being too pretentious, why would a church need two towers like a cathedral?
Finally the villagers and the clergy managed to push the plans through.

The Roman style church houses 17 Stained glass windows, over 3 meters high with colonnades and carved stone framing from the ancient church.

The village lost 6 of the 26 men who went to fight in the trenches of 1914 -18, detailed on the war memorial, where there is also a commemorative stone to the allied soldiers lost in WWII, along with a container of sand from Omaha Beach.