page_title: Church of Saint-Sulpice, Jumet
section_title: Present church
hierarchical_section_title: Church of Saint-Sulpice, Jumet / The successive churches / Present church
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Jumet - Église Saint-Sulpice - Plan, coupes transversale et verticale, et élévation des façades principale et latérale - feuille C
context_page_description: The Church of Saint Sulpice is a Roman Catholic church in Jumet, a neighborhood of the Belgian city of Charleroi in Hainaut, Wallonia. It is dedicated to Sulpitius the Pious. The oldest material traces of a religious building on the site date back to the 10th century. Three churches preceding the current construction were identified during excavations carried out in 1967. The current building was built between 1750 and 1753 in a classical style, by an anonymous architect. The brick and limestone church is quite homogeneous. It's composed of six bayed naves flanked by aisles, a three-sided transept and a choir with a polygonal ambulatory with a sacristy in its axis. The chamfered base is in dimension stone on the frontage, in rubble stones and sandstone for the rest. All the angles of the building are toothed and every second stone is bossed. The church has been listed as a Belgian cultural heritage site since 1949.
context_section_description: The present church was built between 1750 and 1753 by an anonymous architect. The original plans consist of five coloured sheets. They have been numbered from A  to E without any obvious order, probably after the completion of the construction. The C sheet did not belong to the first file, but the five drawings are from the same author. The E sheet has notes on the back where the name of D. De Lados appears twice, suggesting that it could be the name of the architect.
  Before 1750, the old church was demolished and the ground leveled. This leveling is probably why the present church isn't correctly oriented, unlike the original church, whose choir faced due east.
  
  At the time, the design was considered ambitious and excessive for the locality. Tensions took place between the architect and the sponsors, including the abbot of Lobbes, Théodulphe Barnabé (abbot from 1728 to 1752). Construction lagged and, even though old materials were re-used in the base and the pavements, the cost was five times the original estimate : 
  We have been greatly wronged for the erection of this church[...]because the church building, instead of costing us twenty thousand florins, is now costing us at least a hundred thousand [...] The architect has deceived us by increasing the length of the so-mentioned church by twenty-nine feet, and many other things
  — Complaint quoted by L-F. Genicot, 
  The initial plan intended to re-integrate the old tower. An amendment definitely scrapped all the past. This project of a new tower probably belonged to that part of the many other things that were mentioned in the complaint.
  This conflict ended with a trial before the Sovereign Council of Brabant. The architect was forced to reduce the scale of the project. This is evident by examining the successive frontage projects and comparing the size of the achieved high parts and the planned size on the original elevation drawing. The construction continued but with some delay. The church was finished in 1753.
  The steeple was designed to receive three bells. Two bells are attested, and there is no formal proof of the existence of the third.
  On the east side, a bell from 1590 is adorned with the image of the Virgin and has the inscription: Micael Willelmus coadiutor Lobiensis me fecit – 1590 – Maître Jean Grongnart, founder
  On the west side, the second bell was probably in bad shape because it was remelted in 1772, as the inscription attests : + In the year 1772 I was remelted at the expense of the community of Jumet by Simon Chevresson and Deforest.
  It's probable that the French revolution induced structural damage because a budget was allocated by the local administration for the repair of window panes and the roof in 1797. In 1808, three new altars were built.
  In 1835, the church underwent an important restoration. Part of the pavement was replaced, a new set of furniture was put in, the altars transformed and the master altar re-dedicated.
  In the brickwork of the master altar, removed during the 1968 restorations, a wooden reliquary casket with a glass lid was discovered. It contained two bones held together by a copper thread. Between them was a paper document in a very bad shape, nearly unreadable, dated 1835. Possibly that the reliquary is older than that and was put there when the altar was re-devoted.
  In 1840, a pipe organ was installed, the work of organ builder Hypolite Loret of Brussels. The instrument was upgraded in 1873.
  In 1943, German occupation authorities commandeered the bells. The 1590 bell was taken down and shipped to Germany. After the war, it was found and re-installed in the steeple.
caption: 18th century drawing of a proposed new facade (sheet C)
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