Saint-Paul Cathedral

Guide : Saint-Paul was never built to be a cathedral. It became one by default in 1802, after French revolutionaries razed Saint-Lambert, the real cathedral of Liège. In this flat-ended 13th-century Gothic choir, three periods speak to each other: the 1557-1559 stained glass after Lambert Lombard, a Baroque eagle lectern by Jean Del Cour, and the neo-Gothic furnishings delivered by Liège craftsman J.J. Dehin between 1881 and 1894. Where to begin?

Guide : The chapter wanted 'the triumph of Religion over the Genius of Evil'. It got a Lucifer so seductive a second one had to be carved. The first, by Joseph Geefs in 1842, was removed in 1844 — 'this devil is too naked, and above all too sublime'. The second, by Guillaume in 1848, classified a Treasure of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation on 18 March 2025, is the one you are looking at. What strikes you first?

Guide : This bronze Christ was not sculpted for a cathedral. For a hundred and thirty years it watched over the entrance to Liège from the Pont des Arches, where Del Cour installed it on 24 July 1663. Moved in 1685 to the top of the Dardanelle, saved in 1797 by the French who turned it into a drawing-school model, it arrived here only in 1861, flanked by two polychrome wood adoring angels also by Del Cour (1686). Where shall we start?

Guide : Here Saint-Paul becomes a cathedral of light. The eye moves from the flat-ended Gothic choir to the Renaissance windows of 1557-1559, then to the great south-transept window given in 1530 by Léon d'Oultres, one of the finest in Belgium. Yet nothing is homogeneous: Gothic, Renaissance and modern restorations overlap within a single field of view. Where does your eye return first, to the choir or to the transept?