page_title: Abzac, Charente
section_title: Religious Heritage
hierarchical_section_title: Abzac, Charente / Culture and heritage / Religious Heritage
caption_attribution_description: English: church of Abzac, Charente, SW France Français&#160;: église d'Abzac (16), France
context_page_description: Abzac is a commune in the Charente department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwestern France.
  The inhabitants of the commune are known as Abzacois or Abzacoises but can also be alternatively known as Abzacais or Abzacaises
context_section_description: The Church of Saint-Sulpice from the 13th century is in the early Gothic style.
  At the end of the Choir Enclosure, the communion table is an oak sculpture from the early 17th century. The table consists of four members including two doors. The balustrades are decorated with leaves and topped with Ionic capitals, pilasters with a foliated stand, a console, and a sculpted head. Two elements of this table are reused as a pulpit.
  The relics of the saints Lucius and Emerite are preserved at Abzac. In 1670 Pope Clement IX offered to Louis Victor de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Duke of Vivonne (1636-1688), then ambassador of the King of France in Rome, the relics of Saint Lucius and Saint Emeritus, two martyrs of the primitive church. However the Duke of Vivonne, marshal of France, brother of Madame de Montespan, was the Squire of Serre at Abzac which he inherited from his mother, Diane de Grandsaigne, and it was in the chapel of Serre that the relics were of first placed where they were venerated by the people.
  The relics were sent to Paris in 1758 in order to manufacture new shrines and they were divided into three parts:
  The two largest pieces were locked in two copper shrines with silver ornaments and sent to the castle of La Forge à Verrières in Poitou and are now kept at Montmorillon.
  Two small shrines sent to Manneville Castle in the Diocese of Rouen were returned to Abzac in September 1865.
  "Two other large shrines of ebony thirteen to fourteen pouces (inches) long and about nine wide and ten deep which was also covered in ebony with a pyramid supporting a silver cross - also with glass framed by a silver blade - divided by a shelf covered with crimson satin" contained most of the bones of the two martyrs and were offered to the parish of Abzac in 1762 by Jean-Victor, Duke of Mortemarts (1712-1771).
  On 16 July 1762 the relics were verified by Philippe Rabilhac, pastor of Oradour-Fanais, and on 26 July 1762 Monseigneur du Plessis of Argentré, Bishop of Limoges, gave Abzac parish permission to display and worship them. Since then they have been in the custody of the priest and the people of Abzac and are used, in the limousine custom, in the Ostensions septennial.
  The church contains three items that are registered as historical objects:
  A Statue: Saint Roch (17th century)
  A Statue: Virgin and child (17th century)
  The Choir Enclosure (17th century)
  The Church of Chardat was created in 1930 in an old house.
caption: The Church
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