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Origin and history

The Notre Dame de Soyons Abbey finds its origins in a Benedictine female monastery founded in Soyons (Ardèche), one of the oldest in the region. According to tradition, the nuns of Viviers, fleeing the Saracen invasions, settled around the tomb of Saint Venance, bishop. A document from 1179 attests to its existence, but its establishment dates back to a long time ago, with Carolingian remains discovered on the spot. The monastery, prosperous, became a place of pilgrimage until the wars of Religion, where Let us be at the hands of Protestants, looted and burned. The nuns, dispersed, saw their abbey destroyed twice before the Catholic reconquest of 1629.

In 1632, the Abbess Antoinette de Sassenage, in office since 1628, decided to transfer the community to Valencia after temporary aggregation to the Abbaye de Chezal-Benoît. It acquires land in the lower town, near the Rhône, to build a new abbey. The work, rapid, was completed the same year. The site then hosts a Greek cross church, a chapel (added under Louise de Sassenage, sister of Antoinette), and convent buildings. Sassenage's family dominated the abbey until its closure, with seven successive abbesses between 1624 and 1770.

The French Revolution precipitates the decline of the monastery. Threatened by demolition, he was saved by his conversion into an arsenal in 1793, thanks to the intervention of Valentinois. The chapel becomes a workshop, while other spaces house reserves and accommodation for employees. The altarpiece of Saint Venance and its relics, already transferred to the Capuchin chapel to avoid the influx of pilgrims, remain there. After the disappearance of the convent buildings, only the church remains, isolated in a park near the Rhône. It was declared a historic monument in 1965, after first protecting its door in 1926.

The architecture of the Abbey reflects Benedictine sobriety and historical constraints. The classic 17th-century facade, in local molasse, has a symmetrical style inspired by antiquity, restored in 2010 after structural deterioration. The interior, transformed into a boathouse after the Revolution, preserves clasped vault keys to the coat of arms of Sassenage's abbesses. The flat bedside, without openings, and the bare exterior walls underline the austerity of the place. Today, the former abbey is dependent on the sports department of Valencia, integrated into the Jean-Bouin pool complex.

The relics of Saint Venance, an object of medieval devotion, illustrate the upheavals suffered by the site. Piled during the Wars of Religion, then moved to preserve the peace of the nuns, they ended up in the church of Saint John the Baptist. The altarpiece, transferred to the Capuchins, remains the only major artistic testimony of the original abbey. The memory of the Carolingian sanctuary, on the other hand, persists only through archaeological excavations at Soyons, the original cradle of the community.

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