The other day the Internet presented me with a video which reconstructs Cluny III, the great eleventh century church that was the ultimate expression of the great Burgundian abbey. It was, of course, largely destroyed following the suppression of the Abbey during the French Revolution. If the creation of the great church at Cluny represent one of the apogees of French life and culture, then its destruction represents the nadir that was the Revolution.
The video uses excellent graphics and AI to present the awesome scale and grandeur of what was the largest church in Western Christendom until the rebuilding of Saint Peter’s in Rome in the sixteenth century. Watching it you feel that all that is now needed is the willpower to rebuild the Abbey as an act of reparation.
The video can be seen at Reconstitution de la maior ecclesia de Cluny, la plus grande église du Moyen-âge
Coming as I do from a town that had a Cluniac priory I have always been intrigued by the Cluniacs as a community and as a liturgical and cultural influence. In 2014 I had the good fortune, indeed privilege, of visiting Cluny. If the scale of its destruction appals, then the beauty of what remains confirms not just the wickedness of its demolition, but also the holiness of its creation.
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