About 5 miles from my apartment , there is an old church that was built on a fifth-century Roman mausoleum in what is now the small town of Saint-Prex on Lake Geneva. It is one of the oldest churches in the country. Three apses and a bell tower were added in the 12th century. Shortly afterward, the church became a stop on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, the Way of St. James. It was transformed into a Protestant church in 1536 when the Bernese expelled the Savoy and now sits empty most Sundays. The history of Christianity in Europe , its displacement of paganism and subsequent growth and decline, can be traced in the building itself.

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