Texte traduit par Sylvie Durand-Valentin avec l’aimable collaboration de Mme Miriam Bastide.
In its present form the church dates from 1833, the year of its last major renovation. The old church was on a south-east to north-west axis, facing the square. The new one, which is built on the same site, is oriented east-west. The old chapel, which is all that remains of the old building, would have been used by the seigniorial families. It would be used as the chancel for the new building . . . A medieval church and its cemetery were discovered under the castle during the excavations which preceded its renovation in 1995. They dated from the 10th century.
The first fortified manor house, which would become a castle a few centuries later, was built by the lord of Saint Priest in the middle of the 14th century on this early church. One of the buttresses of this very old building is still visible in the living room of Charles VII in the castle. Later, on a document given to the vice bailiff of Vienna in 1540, it was written that it was the lords of Saint Priest who founded the chapel which was used in the 16th century as a parish church. Was this chapel on the site of our church? It is probable because church ground adjoined that of the feudal castle. This church (chapel?) which preceded the one we know today had a single nave and was relatively small. In 1823 the building was extended by 4 metres widthways and 30 metres lengthways towards the south. In 1833 major work was undertaken requiring the total demolition of the central nave in order to reorient the building in an east-west direction, thus bringing its final width to 15 metres and its length to 30 metres while maintaining the lords’ initial chapel as the heart of the church. As the building dates from before 1905 and therefore before the law separating the Church from the State, it is maintained by the town. Much maintenance work has been needed over the decades. The parvis and the ground floor were completely renovated in 2014 and 2015.