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Origin and history

The church of Saint-Julien de Lamativie, located in the former municipality of Lamativie (now Souceyrac-en-Quercy, Lot), is dedicated to Julien de Brioude. His name would come from the first name Mathieu, evoking a "land to Mathieu". Prior to 1650, the inhabitants depended on the church of Comiac, located several kilometres away, which made travel for religious services particularly difficult, especially in winter or for the elderly.

In 1650, on a pastoral tour to Comiac, Bishop Alain de Solminihac, bishop of Cahors, met a delegation from Lamativie requesting permission to build a local chapel. Hit by the distance between Lamativie and Comiac after travelling from Nauvioles, he immediately granted their request. The chapel of Saint-Julien was built in 1658 and opened to parish worship, although baptisms and marriages continued temporarily at Comiac.

By 1667 all religious services were transferred to Lamativie, marking his spiritual autonomy. In the same year the Brotherhood of the Blessed Sacrament was founded, consolidating community life around this place. The church, a sober architecture, consists of a nave in lambris (the vault collapsed at the end of the 20th century), a bell tower, a side chapel dedicated to St Julien, and a pentagonal bedside with an apse in the hemicycle. Its harmony with the adjacent presbytery and their roofs in tiled allassac (or lauze, typical of Sousceyrac) make it an emblematic set of local heritage.

The original furniture, including the high altar offered by Abbé Larribe (Chaplain of the Ursulines of Souceyrac and native of Lamativie) and the altar of the Virgin (1886), has now disappeared. The church thus embodies both the Quercy religious history and the adaptation of rural communities to geographical constraints, while illustrating the modesty of the 17th century parish buildings.

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