Basilica of Our Lady of Peace

In the new capital of Côte d’Ivoire, Yamoussoukro, rises a basilica whose dome and colonnade will look familiar to anyone who has seen Saint Peter’s in Rome. It was built between 1985 and 1989 at the wish of the country’s first president, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, to the design of the Lebanese-Ivorian architect Pierre Fakhoury. Pope Saint John Paul II consecrated it on 10 September 1990, and it was given to the Holy See.

By some measures it is the largest church in the world. Its dome, slightly lower than Saint Peter’s, is topped by a larger cross, and its colonnaded square can hold hundreds of thousands of people. Inside, the church has seats for seven thousand. Its walls are lined with some 7,000 square metres of French stained glass, in which the president himself appears kneeling among the apostles.

The cost of the building in a poor country caused controversy, and the Pope asked that a hospital be built nearby. Today it is a place of pilgrimage for West Africa and a remarkable sign of the growth of the Church on the continent.

Built

1985–1989 (consecrated 1990)

Style

Neoclassical (modelled on St. Peter’s)

Where

Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire

Map

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