Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The monolithic church of Saint John d'Aubeterre, dug in a limestone cliff overlooking the village, finds its origins in the seventh century with a first primitive cavity. A baptismal pool decorated with a Greek cross, carved directly in the rock, bears witness to this paleo-Christian period. The building, originally dedicated to the Saint-Sauveur, is enlarged in the 12th century under the impulse of Pierre de Castillon, Viscount d'Aubeterre, back from crusade. Inspired by the rock churches of Cappadocia, it installs relics in two memoriae imitating the Holy Sepulchre, using a technique of digging up and down to avoid landslides.

In the 12th century, a community of Benedictine monks transformed the church, giving it its present configuration with a nave, a low side and a six-metre high Romanesque reliquary. The monument became a secular collegiate (1155–Revolution), managed by canons financed by eighteen nearby parishes. During the Wars of Religion (circa 1550), his term changed to Saint John. The church, a possible stage on the way to Compostela, also houses a necropolis of eighty sarcophagi and a pre-Christian crypt.

After the Revolution, the building lost its religious function: transformed into a saltpeter factory (1794) for revolutionary armies, then into a cemetery until 1865. Ranked as a Historic Monument in 1912, it was searched and restored from 1958 onwards, revealing bones of local lords (including Marshal of Lussan's Esparbes) and lead shawls. Today, with 65,000 annual visitors (2014), it is the subject of consolidation work to preserve its unique subtractive architecture, mixing arches in the middle of the hangar, octagonal pillars and troglodytic galleries.

The monolithic church shares similarities with two other regional sites: the underground church of Saint-Émilion and the Saint-Martial hermitage chapel in Mortagne-sur-Gironde. Its reliquary, inspired by the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, and its paleo-Christian baptismal vats make it an exceptional testimony of Romanesque art and medieval religious practices. The stones extracted during his excavation were said to have been used to build the nearby castle, overlooking the Dronne valley.

Future

Visited by 65,000 people in 2014, the church will be the object of "significant consolidation and renovation" over several years that could start at the end of 2015, for an estimated budget of 4 million euros.

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