The Catholic Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help

In the 19th century, the neighborhood adjacent to the Père Lachaise cemetery experienced a significant population increase due to the migration of workers from eastern France. In 1872, a first chapel was built, dedicated to Saint Hippolytus. In 1874, the chapel received a copy of an icon revered as Notre-Dame-du-Perpétuel-Secours (Our Lady of Perpetual Help), and the building was placed under the administration of the Redemptorist Order.

Between 1892 and 1896, a new church was constructed according to the plans of the Redemptorist Brother Gérard. After the Redemptorists handed over the church to the Archdiocese of Paris in 1960, it became a parish church. On June 27, 1966, the church was elevated to the status of a minor basilica by Pope Paul VI, under the patronage of Notre-Dame-du-Perpétuel-Secours.

A 67-meter-high ridge turret towers above the church. Notre-Dame-du-Perpétuel-Secours is a three-aisled basilica with a transept. Its layout is a Latin cross. The interior is divided into three levels and covered with a ribbed vault. The bays of the nave are each divided into two pointed arch arcades, which separate the central nave from the side aisles. Columns and pillars are adorned with capitals that are decorated with figurative scenes and floral motifs and bear inscriptions with texts from the Litany of the Virgin Mary. A blind triforium runs around the central nave and the choir.

In the upper gallery, large lancet windows open, created in 1974 by Marcelle Lecamp (1910–2000). They depict the chosen ones who praise God day and night after the Apocalypse.

In the transept, there is a recumbent figure of Alfonso Maria de Liguori (1696–1787), the founder of the Congregation of the Redemptorists. Also in the transept, a copy of the icon Notre-Dame-du-Perpétuel-Secours is displayed, whose original is attributed to the Evangelist Luke. This original is said to have been destroyed in a fire in 1453. In 1469, a copy of this icon from the 9th century was rediscovered in Crete, which today is kept in the church of Sant'Alfonso all'Esquilino in Rome. The icon depicts Mary with the Christ Child, and the Archangels Gabriel and Michael holding the instruments of the Passion.

The organ is one of the largest organs in Paris. It was built by the organ building company Dargassies and the Manufacture Vosgienne de Grandes Orgues, using organ parts from the Parisian churches of Saint-Ferdinand-des-Ternes and Saint-Georges, and was inaugurated in 2004.