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Origin and history

The church of Saint-Génies de Litenis is a Romanesque church located in Saint-Génies, a village in the commune of Saint-Jean-de-Fos, in the Hérault department. It is isolated in the countryside, south of the village, near the D9E2 departmental road linking Saint-Jean-de-Fos to Gignac. This site was once a strategic point on an old route linking the Lodevois to Nîmes and Maguelone, before the construction of the Devil's Bridge in the 11th century.

The church was mentioned in the 9th century in the cartular of Gellone as part of the Litenis tax, an estate given in 804 by Charlemagne to his cousin Guillaume de Gellone (Sant Guilhem) as a reward for his fighting against the Saracens. This estate, including the church, was then transferred to the Gellone Abbey, founded in the same year, and became one of the main land holdings until the 13th century.

The present Roman-style building was built in the 11th–12th centuries at the site of a lateral nave of a 6th–7th century Paleo-Christian sanctuary, discovered by excavations between 1994 and 2001. The church of Saint-Genies, originally parish, was replaced by that of Saint-Jean-de-Fos in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. Degraded in the 18th century, it even served as a stone quarry after the Revolution, before being restored in 1876 and then between 1987 and 2012.

Architecturally, the church presents a simple Romanesque bedside with a semi-circular apse in stone, a south facade pierced with a gate in the middle of the wall, and a rectangular bell tower with four campanary bays. Although not classified as historical monuments, it is listed in the General Inventory of Cultural Heritage (reference IA00028659).

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