Cathedral of St Louis

The Catholic cathedral of Plovdiv, built in 1861 on the site of an earlier chapel and dedicated to Louis IX, king of France. The city's Catholic community grew out of the descendants of the Paulicians — medieval heretics who converted to Catholicism in the seventeenth century — and it remains a noticeable presence to this day. The facade is handled in the spirit of Italian Baroque: paired pilasters, a triangular pediment with statues, a semicircular window above the entrance; the bell tower stands separately and was raised higher later on. Nineteenth-century wall painting and the altar survive inside, along with an organ. In the crypt lies Marie Louise of Bourbon-Parma, the first wife of Prince Ferdinand and mother of Tsar Boris III, who died in Sofia in 1899. In 2002 Pope John Paul II visited the cathedral. The building stands on a quiet square in the lower town, off to one side of the tourist flow.

On the map