Church of the Holy Trinity, Choisy-au-Bac

The Church of the Holy Trinity is a Catholic parish church located in Choisy-au-Bac, in the Oise department, in France. It is not to be confused with the basilica dedicated to St. Stephen, of older foundation, which played an important role in the Merovingian period, and was abandoned at the French Revolution. The construction of the present parish church began at the beginning of the 12th century with the Romanesque nave, and continued after the middle of the 12th century with the transept with its two apsidioles and the façade, which hesitates between the Romanesque and the Gothic, to be completed at the beginning of the 13th century with the apse and the bell tower, clearly Gothic. Its configuration is in the tradition of the Romanesque basilicas of the Soissonnais region from the second half of the 11th century, and the many archaic features, including the absence of columns with capitals in the nave and transept, the cul-de-four vaulting of the apses at such an advanced period, and the absence of buttresses in front of the apse, which was nevertheless vaulted with ogives from the beginning, are difficult to explain. The radical restoration that the church underwent between 1853 and 1885 definitively erased the clues that could have allowed us to understand the history of the building. The exterior is largely neo-Gothic, but is supposedly inspired by its original architecture. The most authentic and original element is undoubtedly the bell tower, of a stripped style but with a powerful silhouette. It is the only one in the region to have so many bays on the belfry floor. The church of the Holy Trinity was classified as a historical monument by order of February 5, 1920. It is now affiliated with the parish of the Sixteen Blessed Carmelites of Compiègne.