Religious vitality of the Cote d'Opale in the XIXth-XXth centuries:: Research account

Yves-Marie Hilaire and Serge Laury's founding research work on the religious life of the Arras diocese in the XIXth and XXth centuries have provided a general framework for the research in religious sociology. Specific studies can now be carried out on narrower spaces. Developed within the newly created Universite du Littoral-Cote d'Opale, research on parishes, congregations, religious constructions, Catholic action movements and surveys of religious practice lead us to raise the question of a possible specificity of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais coastal regions from the point of view of religious evolution. A resistance to the real decline of religious practice among the populations concerned combines itself with the variety of the approaches to the cult, particularly among the popular classes. The keys to understanding these phenomena are to be found as much in tradition as in a will to adapt to contemporary life.