Near the small Breton town of Vieux Marché is a chapel
dedicated to The Seven Sleeping Saints.
To reach the chapel I set off west towards the coastline
where, in the fifth century, Irish monks - les moines navigateurs - arrived in
flimsy crafts, set foot on rocky shores and gave thanks for their safe
delivery.
Towards the coast but not quite that far...
The Sept Saints Dormant are not sleeping in Vieux Marché
itself, you have to go through the village and pick up the signs and then
follow a trail that twists and turns and sends you round in seemingly
ever-decreasing circles as if to test your resolve, before permitting you to
arrive, finally, at your destination which is the small and plain-looking chapel.
You can park right outside, parking is never an issue in
France., and wander in through one of two open doors or, as I did, walk around
the outside to get a feel for the land and to read the sign on the gate that
describes how Louis Massignon, the celebrated French orientalist made a
connection between the Breton Sept Saints Dormants and Sura Eighteen of The
Koran, the one that tells the story of the seven early Christian martyrs in
Ephesus, Turkey.
The Muslim story relates how, in the third century, seven
brothers, Maximilian, Mark, Martin, Dennis, John, Seraphin and Constantine,
early followers of Christianity, were ordered by the Emperor Decius to make
sacrifices to his pagan gods. When they refused Decius ordered them to be cast
into a cave and entombed alive. One hundred and seventy years later the cave
was discovered and opened and the seven martyrs were found to be just as they had
been left, not dead but sleeping. They awoke briefly, died, and were then
transported straight to heaven.
A Breton folk song, The Gwerz recounts the same story,
attributes miracles to the seven brothers and links it to the chapel near Vieux
Marché.
"In the Bishopric of Treguier, in the Parish of
Plouaret, The Holy Spirit raised up a chapel without the use of lime or clay,
without a mason, or roofer or carpenter. Whoever visits can see the truth. The
chapel is made up of but six stones, four rocks that serve as walls and two
others as the roof.Who can doubt that Almighty God built it?"
The first 'chapel' was a indeed built without lime or clay.
It is a dolmen, dating back to the early Neolithic period (4000 - 3000 BCE), a
single-chamber tomb comprising four upright stones (megaliths) topped by two
flat capstones. The dolmen now forms part of the south transept and it is this
sacred place, rather than the chapel that was built on 1703 on the feast day of
Saint Mary Magdelene, that the Gwerz celebrates and associates with
resurrection and eternal life.
When the Celts arrived they found the landscape dotted with
dolmens and menhirs and other enduring stone symbols that they, too, revered
and venerated because the Celts also believed that sleep, death and resurrection
were intricately linked and that a person could pass between such states as
easily as slipping through a forest clearing.
Think back to the fairy stories that your mother told you
when you were a child...
"il était une fois ..." Once upon a time...
of Sleeping Beauty who slept in the castle for a hundred
years before Prince Charming appeared to rouse her, still glowing with youthful
beauty, with a kiss on her lips...
of Snow White who ate the beautiful rosy-red apple that the
Wicked Stepmother had laced with poison, died and was placed in a glass coffin
by the seven dwarves where she remained in a state between sleep and death
until the handsome hunter came upon her and revived her with a kiss.
The poet Rumi wrote "During the night our souls are
reunited with God
"Sleep and death, physical states between which a body
and soul can pass back and forth...
"Not dead, but sleeping"
"Fell asleep on..."
In this land of myths and legends it's not so difficult to
believe in the Sept Saints Dormant
It was pure good fortune that brought the Orintalist Louis
Massignon to this place. One hot July day, the third Sunday in the month, he
was taking part in a pardon (a religious festival to mark the local saint's
day) when he was struck by the similarities between the story recounted by The
Gwerz and that of the Koran. His research led him to discover that in days gone
by the Celts of Brittany developed commercial links with the Muslims of the
Orient and that the area around Vieux Marché was a stopping-off point on the
route of traders carrying raw materials for the manufacture of iron and with it
, it seems, also their tales and beliefs from distant lands.
The people of Brittany adopted the miracle of the Seven
Sleeping Saints and, in 1954, Louis Massignon added an Islamic Christian
pilgrimage for Peace to the Breton Pardon of The Seven Saints of Ephesus at
Vieux Marché that remains, to this day, an important link between the two faiths....
There is a small door on the right-hand side of the chapel
that leads down stone steps into a vault. Behind an old dark brown oak screen
there are seven small figures and one larger one that represents Mary and
Jesus. It's too dark for photographs so I borrowed this from Wikipedia.
Inside the chapel, built in the shape of a cross and,
as is the way with Christian worship, facing east towards the rising sun (son),
above the altar, the Seven Saints and Mary and Jesus raise their eyes towards
heaven and eternal peace.
If you sit on the pew at the front, light a one euro candle
and place it carefully on the stand, and focus your mind and your prayers on
the flickering candle light you might be lucky enough to see the whole altar
lit up by rays of sunlight entering through the stained glass panel to the
right.
Time will stand still. Silence will engulf you and you will
feel at peace.
On the right there are the statues of St
Michel and The Archangel Gabriel, Jesus and angels... and the dolmen on which the original chapel was contructed.
Before you leave you are invited to buy a few postcards to spread the
word of Peace and Brotherhood between faiths and to write a prayer in the open
book nearby.
