Chapelle Saint-Lucie

The chapel Sainte-Lucie has been recently restored and well maintained. It is a modest building of whitewashed rubble stone, built in 1629, as the date on the lintel of the entrance door indicates. It has a small semicircular apse and is protected by a slate roof with a bell tower. A lean-to shelters the entrance to the sanctuary, which lies along the road and is shaded by imposing century-old oak trees. The oak is a tree of strength and sturdiness and is said to protect against lightning. The chapel is dedicated to Lucia of Syracuse, a Christian martyr who died in the early 4th century and was invoked against bleeding and eye diseases.

Listed as a monument on May 15, 1949.

According to legend, Saint Lucia lived during the time of the Christian persecution by Emperor Diocletian (reigned 284-305). She was the daughter of a Roman citizen in Syracuse, who had lost her father at a young age. Her mother, Eutychia, had been suffering from dysentery for four years. Both women spent a night in prayer at the tomb of the Christian saint Saint Agatha, the patron saint of Catania. At the end of the night, the saint appeared to Lucia in a vision. The saint prophesied in it Lucy that she would become the glory of Syracuse, as Agatha was that of Catania. Her mother was also immediately miraculously cured.

Eutychia arranged a pagan husband for her daughter, but Lucia persuaded her mother to cancel the marriage and to distribute the dowry to the poor as alms. Lucia had chosen Christ as bridegroom and wanted to remain a virgin forever. The intended husband came to know about the distribution of the dowry. He then reported Lucia as a Christian to the magistrate Paschasius. He asked her to make a sacrifice to the emperor, which she refused. She was then sentenced to work in a brothel, but miraculously it turned out that the guards were unable to remove her, not even after an oxen team had been deployed. Later they try to burn her alive, but she didn't seem to be bothered by the pyre either. She was then killed with sword thrusts. The fatal wound is said to have been inflicted by stabbing her neck with a sword.

Another legend tells how Lucia lost her eyes. One version of this story is that a pagan lover sought her hand. He complimented her on her beautiful eyes, after which she reached out and sent them to him on a platter, telling her to leave her alone. Miraculously, however, she continued to be able to see. In other versions of the legend, her eyes are gouged out at her martyrdom. Both versions do not appear in hagiographies older than the 14th century and are therefore probably a later addition.

Willem Vandenameele