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Origin and history

The Church of the Mission of France, located at 44 rue du Tapais-Vert in the 1st arrondissement of Marseilles, was built between 1648 and 1673 by the priests of the Mission (Lazarists), a congregation founded by Saint Vincent de Paul. These religious settle in the district of the arsenal of galeries, on a plot bounded by the current streets of the Tapais-Vert, Thubaneau, the Mission de France and Longue-des-Capucins. The project is part of the urban expansion of Marseille under Louis XIV, marked by the construction of new ramparts led by engineer Nicolas Arnoul. The church, originally modest, became a central place for the congregation.

At the Revolution, the church was confiscated as a national property in 1791. It was praised to Protestants from 1791 to 1794, becoming their first official temple in Marseilles thanks to the 1787 edict of tolerance. In 1795, the convent buildings were sold, but the church was preserved. This change reflects the religious upheavals of the period, when non-Catholic cults obtain ephemeral legal recognition.

In 1839 Bishop Eugene de Mazenod entrusted the church to the Jesuits, who undertook a major reconstruction between 1841 and 1865. The present façade, created in 1860 by the cement manufacturer Désiré Michel, marks this transformation. In 1861, the Congregation of the Sisters of Notre-Dame de la Compassion found its origin there with the death of its founder, Jean-François Barthès, in an attitled room. The organ, installed by the house Puget de Toulouse in 1865, completes this artistic heritage.

In the 20th century, the anticongregationist laws of the Third Republic expelled the Jesuits in 1901. The church, a municipal property, is disused and successively serves as a concert hall, a masonry school, and then a school warehouse until 1979. This decline illustrates the gradual secularization of religious property in France.

In 1984, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X recovered the church, restoring it to worship and dedicating it to St. Pius X. The organ, restored and modified several times (notably in 1991 and 2006), became a central element of parish life. The furniture, such as the altar from the old church of St.Martin (destroyed in 1887) or the chair of 2020, bears witness to its continuous evolution.

Classified as a historical monument since 1965, the church today embodies a religious, architectural and musical heritage. Its history, marked by religious changes, reconstructions and reallocations, reflects the social and political changes of Marseilles from the 17th to the 21st century.

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