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Origin and history

The cross of the Twelve Apostles is a building located in Logonna-Daoulas, Finistère, Brittany. It is located on the old vicinal road between Logonna-Daoulas and L-Hôpital-Camfrout, near the hamlet of Rungléo. This monument consists of a trapezoidal monolith of 2.20 m high, probably a re-use of an old menhir or an iron age stele, on which is inserted a quadrangular cross. Its base is a rounded block of granite. The particularity of this cross lies in its anterior face, carved of bas-reliefs representing the twelve Apostles in niches, surmounted by a figure of the blessed Christ holding a globe.

The arrangement and the list of the apostles would be linked to the Roman canon of the tridentine rite, defined by Pope Pius V in 1570, which placed its realization in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. This rare iconography in Brittany also evokes the Irish high Crosses of the 9th–Xth centuries. Although Christianized menhirs and steles are common in the region, no comparable crosses have been identified to date. The monument was listed as historical monuments by order of 27 July 2015.

The hypothesis of a re-employment of a pagan monolith (menhir or Milestone) re-aligned and Christianized underscores the symbolic continuity between pre-Christian cultures and Christian tradition. The cross of the Twelve Apostles thus bears witness to a common practice in Brittany, where prehistoric stones were often reinvested by Christianity to mark places of worship or crossroads. Its location on an ancient vicinal path reinforces its role as a spiritual and geographical landmark for travellers and pilgrims.

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