While the parish of St. Columba, an Irish saint, dates back to 1847, you don’t have to be a historian to realize this is not the original structure of the Cathedral of St. Columba. In fact, if I counted right, the current cathedral is actually the fourth church. Stridently Modernist, it was completed in 1958;…
Tag: Cathedrals
Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, Cleveland
St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Cathedral, while showing a 1940s exterior renovation that belies its 1852 construction, sits at a busy intersection in downtown Cleveland. The original design of the cathedral was by Irish architect Patrick Keely, who was active out of Brooklyn and is responsible for churches throughout the eastern United States. While…
Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Cathedral, Toledo
I didn’t realize it, but Toledo is a diocese, and the cathedral is located northwest of downtown. The current cathedral was completed in 1940, after an earlier school and chapel dedicated to St. Francis de Sales were completed in 1914. The design is practical, with a smokestack matching the rest of the composition, and again,…
Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Interior, Detroit
The staff graciously turned on the lights for me so I could photograph the interior of the cathedral, which was completed in 1930, several years after the church was consecrated. There were some renovations in the early millennium that are apparent as they look different than in a typical Gothic Revival cathedral. The stained glass…
Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Exterior, Detroit
The Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament sits on the east side of Woodward Avenue, fairly far north from downtown in a largely residential area. While the above aerial image accurately captures that there is some demolition and abandonment around the cathedral, when you’re on the ground you see there are actually several historic districts…
Cathedral of the Holy Angels, Gary, August 2023
I visited the second of two cathedral on my trip, the second that was closed when I visited, and the first of a diocese in Gary, reflecting the rapid growth in northwest Indiana after World War II. The diocese was only created in 1956 out of the diocese of Fort Wayne. The Cathedral of the…
Holy Name Cathedral and Three Churches, Chicago
We’ll dive into our tour of Chicago, which hasn’t seen a post since January of 2015, by first looking at Holy Name Roman Catholic Cathedral and several other noteworthy churches. I visited six cathedrals on this most recent trip, three archdioceses, three dioceses, and was able to view the interior of three. The original Holy…
St. Agnes Roman Catholic Cathedral, Springfield
The Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau is a bit of a different Roman Catholic diocese in that it stretches clear across the southern third of the state of Missouri, and has two co-cathedrals, one in each city. Here we are looking at the Cathedral of St. Agnes, located to the southeast of downtown Springfield, which we’ll…
Les Invalides
I caught this view of the dome of the Invalides through the trees of the gardens of the Rodin Museum, which is a must-see when you’re visiting Paris. Designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the structure serves as a critical step in the development of domes in Western architecture. The domed church was part of a larger…
Cathedral of St. Louis, Blois
Heading back to the town of Blois for a bit, we look at the Cathedral of St. Louis, an interesting mix of old and newer additions. Portions date from Gothic style all the way up to the Seventeenth Century and the Baroque. Which brings me to an interesting revelation; after the Gothic, French ecclesiastic architecture…