Liège - Collégiale Saint-Jean l'Évangéliste

Liège is the center of the largest Walloon agglomeration, and the cultural center of the Walloon region of Belgium. The city, with a population of about 200.000, is located at the confluence of the Ourthe and Meuse rivers.

Around 705, Saint Lambert of Maastricht is credited with completing the Christianization of the region, but conversion may still not have been quite universal, since Lambert was murdered in Liège. To enshrine his relics, the successor, Hubertus (later St. Hubert), built a basilica which became the nucleus of the city.
In 1468, following an uprising of the inhabitants against Burgundian rule, xof Burgundy had the city plundered and systematically destroyed. The few survivors who had fled into the forests—Charles the Bold allegedly had more than 5,000 inhabitants murdered—were only able to return to the city for reconstruction after seven years.

In 1789, partly in connection with the French Revolution, the Liège Revolution occurred. It was directed against the absolutist rule of the Prince-Bishop and was crushed in early 1791 by troops commissioned by the Holy Roman Empire. In 1795, Liège was occupied by French troops and became part of the First French Republic. The Congress of Vienna annexed it to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which in 1830 became the Kingdom of Belgium, to which Liège has belonged ever since.


The Collegiate Church of St. John the Evangelist was founded as a collegiate church by Notker of Liège around 980, and consecrated in 987. The church was a kind of replica of Charlemagne's Aachen Cathedral. It was suppressed in 1797 during the French Revolution, the building being confiscated and sold in 1798.

The center, originally an octagonal building in Mosan Romanesque style, incorporating elements of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the church was completely rebuilt in a late Baroque style in 1754–1784. It has been in use as a parish church since 1809.

The church is currently being restored.