Churches, Mosques and Temples Main article: List of religious buildings in Paris

Christianity

Main article: List of churches in Paris

The Notre Dame Cathedral is the seat of the Archdiocese of Paris.

Like the rest of France, Paris has been predominantly Roman Catholic since the early Middle

Ages, though religious attendance is now low. A majority of Parisians are still nominally Roman

Catholic. According to 2011 statistics, there are 106 parishes and curates in the city, plus

separate parishes for Spanish, Polish and Portuguese Catholics. There are an additional 10

Eastern Orthodox parishes, and bishops for the Armenian and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches. In

addition there are eighty male religious orders and 140 female religious orders in the city, as well

as 110 Catholic schools with 75,000 students.[247]

The principal Roman Catholic church in Paris is the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, the seat

of the Archbishop of Paris.[248]

There are two officially recognised pilgrimage sites in Paris: the

Basilica of Sacré-Cœur on Montmartre and the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal.

Cardinal André Vingt-Trois became the Archbishop of Paris in March 2005.[249]

Almost all Protestant denominations are represented in Paris, with 74 evangelical churches from

various denominations,[250]

including 21 parishes of the United Protestant Church of France and

two parishes of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. There are several important

churches for the English-speaking community: the American Church in Paris, founded in 1814,

was the first American church outside the United States; the current church was finished in

1931.[251]

The Saint George's Anglican Church in the 16th arrondissement is the principal

Anglican church in the city.[252]

Islam

The Grand Mosque of Paris (1926) is the oldest mosque in France.

The Grand Mosque of Paris, the oldest mosque in Paris, was dedicated in 1926. It was funded by

the French government and built to honor the 38,000 soldiers from Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco

who died fighting for France in the First World War.[253]

In 2011 there were nineteen large mosques within the city limits of Paris, all except the Grand

Mosque located in the outer arrondissements of the city, as well as hundreds of small prayer

rooms. The number of mosques doubled between 1991 and 2011.[254]

Judaism

During the Middle Ages, Paris was a center of Jewish learning with famous Talmudic scholars,

such as Yechiel of Paris who took part in the Disputation of Paris between Christian and Jewish

intellectuals. The Parisian Jewish community was victim of persecution, alternating expulsions

and returns, until France became the first country in Europe to emancipate its Jewish population

during the French Revolution. Although 75% of the Jewish population in France survived the

Holocaust during World War II,[255][256]

half the city's Jewish population perished in Nazi

concentration camps, while some others fled abroad.[257]

A large migration of North Africa

Sephardic Jews settled Paris in the 1960s, and represent most of the Paris Jewish community

today. There are currently 83 synagogues in the city;[258]

The Marais-quarter Agoudas Hakehilos

Synagogue, built in 1913 by architect Hector Guimard, is a Paris landmark.[259]

Buddhism and Hinduism

The Pagode de Vincennes Buddhist temple, near Lake Daumesnil in the Bois de Vincennes, is

the former Cameroon pavilion from the 1931 Paris Colonial Exposition. It hosts several different

schools of Buddhism, and does not have a single leader. It shelters the biggest Buddha statue in

Europe, more than nine metres high. There are two other small temples located in the Asian

community in the 13th arrondissement. A Hindu temple, dedicated to Ganesh, on Rue Pajol in

the 18th arrondissement, opened in 1985.