Bérenger Saunière

Who was Bérenger Saunière?

François Bérenger Saunière was a Roman Catholic priest in the French village of Rennes-le-Château, in the Aude region, officially from 1885 until he was transferred to another village in 1909 by his bishop, a nomination he declined and subsequently resigned. From 1909 until his death in 1917 he was a non-stipendiary Free Priest, and who from 1910 celebrated Mass in an altar constructed in a special conservatory by his Villa Bethania. Saunière's refusal to leave Rennes-le-Château to continue his priesthood in another parish incurred permanent suspension. The epitaph on Saunière's original 1917 gravestone read "priest of Rennes-le-Château 1885-1917".

He would be unknown today if not for the fact that he is a central figure in many of the conspiracy theories surrounding Rennes-le-Château. These speculations form the basis of several documentaries and books such as the 1982 Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. Many elements of these theories were later used by Dan Brown in his best-selling 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code, in which the fictional character Jacques Saunière is named after the priest.