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Abbey of Saint-Ouen

Saint-Ouen Abbey Church
Saint-Owen Abbey Church
Abbatiale Saint-Ouen
Abbaye Saint-Ouen de Rouen as seen from Gros Horloge 140215 3.jpg
The Abbey Church
as seen from the Great Clock
Saint-Ouen Abbey Church is located in France
Saint-Ouen Abbey Church
Saint-Ouen Abbey Church
Location of Saint-Ouen
49°26′33″N 1°05′59″E / 49.44250°N 1.09972°E / 49.44250; 1.09972Coordinates: 49°26′33″N 1°05′59″E / 49.44250°N 1.09972°E / 49.44250; 1.09972
Location City Hall Square, Rouen, Normandy
Country France
Denomination Roman Catholic
Website rouen.catholique.fr
History
Founded 750
Dedication Saint-Ouen
Dedicated 17 October 1126
Relics held Saint-Ouen
Architecture
Status Abbey Church
Functional status Defunct
Heritage designation Classée Monument Historique
Designated 1840
Architectural type church
Style Gothic, Flamboyant
Groundbreaking 1318
Completed 1537
Specifications
Number of towers 3
Bells 3 bells : "Saint-Ouen", 4 tons (1701); "Marie", 3 tons (1651); "Julie Marcelle", 2135kg (1887)
Administration
Archdiocese Rouen
Clergy
Archbishop Dominique Lebrun
Laity
Organist/Director of music Marie-Andrée Morisset-Balier
Organist(s) Jean-Baptiste Monnot
Building details
General information
Location Rouen, Normandy
Height
Antenna spire 82m

Saint-Ouen Abbey Church, also referred in English as Saint-Owen Abbey Church (French: Abbatiale Saint-Ouen), is a large Gothic Roman Catholic church in Rouen, Normandy, France. The abbey is famous for both its architecture and its large, unaltered Cavaillé-Coll organ, which has once been described as "a Michelangelo of an organ" by Charles-Marie Widor. Built on a similar scale to nearby Rouen Cathedral, it is, along with the Church of Saint-Maclou, one of the principal Gothic monuments of Rouen.

The church was originally built as the abbey church of Saint Ouen for the Benedictine Order, beginning in 1318 and interrupted by the Hundred Years' War and sacked and badly damaged during the Harelle. It was completed in the 15th century in the Flamboyant style.

The foundation of St. Ouen's Abbey has been variously credited, among others, to Clothair I and to St. Clothilda, but evidence is scanty. It was dedicated at first to St. Peter when the body of St. Ouen, Archbishop of Rouen (d. 678), was buried there; the name of St. Peter and St. Ouen became common and finally St. Ouen only. The history of the abbey, on record from the 1000, is unremarkable; a list of abbots is in Gallia Christiana XI, 140. In 1660 the monastery was united to the Congregation of St. Maur, and when suppressed, in 1794, the community numbered twenty-four. The abbey building itself was vacated by the time of the French Revolution and was subsequently occupied by the Town Hall of Rouen.


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