The Miracle of the Waters at Avignon

The story starts two centuries earlier. Avignon had sided with the Count of Toulouse in the Albigensian wars. The Albigensians, or Cathars, were a religious movement that the Church judged heretical and that rejected the sacraments, including the Eucharist. In 1226 King Louis VIII of France besieged the city for three months and took it.

The confraternity tells that on 14 September 1226, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the king, dressed in ash-coloured sackcloth, led a procession of penance to the little chapel of the Holy Cross outside the walls, with the cardinal legate, bishops, barons and people, and there adored the Blessed Sacrament. Those who stayed on to keep up the adoration became, it says, the Grey Penitents. This is the Company's own memory, and it is older than its proof. Local histories call it a legend, and they say it is more likely that Bishop Pierre of Avignon brought the Sacrament and that the people who followed him barefoot in sackcloth became the first confraternity. What is sure is that the Company has claimed this beginning for a very long time and marked its 800th year in 2026.

The chapel stood on a channel of the Sorgue, the small river that runs through the city in what is now the rue des Teinturiers, the street of the dyers. According to that report of a pastoral visit, the Company held the privilege of keeping the Blessed Sacrament exposed continually in its chapel by apostolic permission, with indulgences on certain feasts. Later retellings say the Sacrament had been exposed there for about two hundred years before 1433.

Late in the autumn of 1433, heavy rain raised the rivers. Sources name the Rhône, the Sorgue and the Durance. Avignon is at the meeting of these waters and has known many floods. A national French database of flood markers records one at the chapel.

The dates vary. The account quoted from the pastoral visit and from nineteenth-century writers has the chapel invaded on Monday 27 November around Vespers. A manuscript in the municipal library of Avignon (ms 2476), as summarised in a French catalogue of historical floods, gives 28 November. Some English retellings give the evenings of 29 and 30 November. The Company keeps 30 November; the diocese's page gives only the year.

According to tradition, the penitents feared for the Blessed Sacrament exposed in their chapel. Most versions say that they came by boat. The Company's own history speaks of about a dozen of them. A fundraising page written for the Company says the First Master and two penitents. Another retelling names two brothers, Armand and Jehan de Pouzilhac-Farure. Other versions speak of two superiors, or four.

The account quoted from the pastoral visit says the friars of the nearby Franciscan church went first, and that the masters and confrères then gathered. They found the water in the chapel standing about four "pans" high, a Provençal measure, which English retellings give as four feet. But it was divided to either side in the form of a roof, with a dry path from the door to the altar and tabernacle. The account compares this with the crossing of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:21 to 22). One source says the waters stayed that way for three days.

The penitents reached the altar on foot and saved the Sacrament. In some versions it was carried to a Franciscan church on dry land. Religious and other devout people were brought in to see. Witnesses, the same account says, signed a formal report that was kept in the archives of the Company.

The event made the chapel a place of pilgrimage. Sources speak of a wave of devotion across the city. From the end of the fifteenth century other confraternities of penitents appeared in Avignon, in other colours, for the care of the sick, the dying and prisoners. In 1475 Sixtus IV made Avignon an archdiocese for his nephew, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, later Pope Julius II. The Cardinal joined the Grey Penitents, and his arms are on the lintel of the chapel.

The chapel was enlarged in 1590. The vestibule with its panelled ceiling is dated 1631. Archbishop Lorenzo Fieschi recorded the event in the report of a visit during his years at Avignon, 1690 to 1705. The later quotation prints the date as 18 July 1669, which cannot be right for him, so it is probably a misprint. The Revolution suppressed the confraternities in 1792. The chapel was sold and stripped, and its old nave collapsed. Only the Grey, the Black and the White were restored, in 1815 and 1816. The Company says it has never ceased to exist. The present nave, called the Nave of the Miracle, was built between 1816 and 1818.

The account has grown in the telling, as the differences above show. It has not, so far as we could find, been studied closely by a modern historian. There are no scientific tests, and there could not be any. A sceptic might say that a story like this grows with each telling, and that a late and second-hand record cannot show what happened in 1433. A believer may accept the plain tradition of the Company. A Catholic may hold either view, because the faith does not depend on this.

In the same way, retellings that present the Albigensians or the people of Avignon only as villains go beyond what is useful. The Church has judged the teaching of the Cathars to be false. The people themselves are in the hands of God, and a sad war stands behind the beginning of this devotion.

• Perpetual exposition. The report of the pastoral visit says the Company kept the Sacrament exposed by apostolic permission, with indulgences under papal bulls on certain feasts and Sundays. We did not find the bulls themselves.
• Giuliano della Rovere, Archbishop and legate, later Julius II, is recorded as a member.
• Archbishops of Avignon. Archbishop Fieschi's visit recorded the event and the Company's duty to keep its statutes and its devotion.
• The diocese today lists the confraternity among its communities and names the miracle of 1433 on its page.
• We found no papal visit, no decree of a Roman Congregation, and no proper feast approved by Rome for this event.

• The yearly procession. On the Sunday near 30 November, the Company says, the penitents go barefoot and hooded with a rope around the neck, on their knees, up the nave from the back of the chapel to the communion rail, along the way the water left open. One source says the song of Moses, the Cantemus Domino, is sung before the blessing with the Sacrament.
• Adoration. This is still the heart of their calling. The diocese lists adoration on the first Saturday of each month, while the Company's fundraising page says the first Friday.
• Charity. The Company founded in 1854 a work giving catechism twice a week to child labourers from the local cloth factories. This is one of its best fruits.
• Other confraternities. The model spread through Avignon: the Black Penitents, the White, the Blue and others, who cared for the sick, prisoners and the dead. The association Avignon Cité Millénaire reports about 90 confraternities and 4,000 penitents in France today.
• Art. The chapel keeps paintings attributed to the families of Mignard and Parrocel and, according to the Michelin guide, a golden Glory above the altar by Jean Péru. Old prints of the miracle are held by the Company, among them one on silk showing the parted waters.
• Today. The Company has around fifty members. For its 800 years in 2026 it planned to host more than twenty confraternities of France and Monaco and to restore the chapel.