Priest assures that “the most important” has been saved

Artworks and objects from the church have begun to be evacuated. Firefighters remain mobilized on site this Tuesday, September 3 due to beams that continue to burn in the church.

The day after the violent fire that hit the Immaculate Conception church in Saint-Omer on Monday, September 2, it is time for an initial assessment of the damage. The roof of the church was completely ravaged during the fire. The vault and the bell tower also collapsed. But “we were able to save the most important thing, the tabernacle, the holy hosts,” Father Sébastien Roussel told BFMTV.

“And we started to evacuate some works, statues, the holy statue of the Virgin which is in the center, on which we pray very regularly. And then the closest statues, in particular a reliquary of Saint Cornelius. In a second wave, we will evacuate the rest, in particular the entire Stations of the Cross, which were restored for 2018.”

Suspect in custody

An investigation has been opened to determine the exact cause of the fire, even though the building had benefited from a restoration including its electrical installations in 2018.

For the parish priest, no electrical appliance in the church could have caused the fire. “No coffee maker, no fridge, no lit candle. I was even asked if I had left incense, since we had celebrated mass on Sunday,” Father Sébastien Roussel explained to BFMTV, adding that the only elements that could be of particular interest are “the switches or the bell launch panels.”

This Tuesday, September 3, the Saint-Omer prosecutor’s office told AFP that a person had been taken into custody the day before as part of the investigation. The man, born in 1985, is known for “numerous past records”, including “similar acts of destruction by fire”.

At this stage, however, the investigation has only been able to determine the starting point of the fire within the church. “The fire started in the sacristy, at the very back of the church, to the right of the choir. The first starting point was there,” the priest explained.

A mass celebrated on Wednesday

Emotions ran high in the Pas-de-Calais town after the fire. Many residents have a special attachment to the building and keep important memories there, “for a wedding, a baptism, a funeral,” the priest said on Monday.

This Tuesday, firefighters remain mobilized on site and are pumping water from the canal because beams continue to burn within the church, particularly above the stained glass windows at the back of the building.

The Bishop of Saint-Omer had expressed his support for the residents and parishioners after the church fire. A mass is also to be celebrated at 9:15 a.m. this Wednesday in the Notre-Dame-des-Miracles basilica in Saint-Omer.