Eglise de Morey (ancienne)

In the hamlet of Morey is the old parish church dating from the end of the 13th century. Curiously, this church dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin was built 500m above the village. The land was donated by Guillaume de Morey and the church was built in 1295, the year in which the bishops' castle was enlarged and the first parish church was located within its walls. The association of the Friends of the Old Stones of Lucenay l'Evêque refers to a former priory, on which the church would have been built. In the 17th century Lucenay was a place of pilgrimage against rabies and people came from far and wide for the miraculous cures that took place there.the wooden bell tower with its spire was destroyed by lightning in 1811 and replaced by a domed bell tower inspired by St Peter of Rome (architect Joubert). The church, which was poorly maintained in the 18th and 19th centuries and perhaps too small, was abandoned in 1900 and a new church built opposite the town hall. Since 1971, the above-mentioned association has been working to save this beautiful Romanesque building. The Romanesque church consists of a ribbed vaulted choir extended by a long, lower nave and a side aisle built around 1680. At the junction between the nave and the choir was the bell tower (collapsed in 1959 with the roof of the nave). On the same level is a chapel flanked by a turret. The cemetery remained around the church. It does not appear on the Cassini map.