Basilica Cathedral of St. John the Baptist
The Basilica Cathedral of St. John the Baptist ( German Kathedralbasilika Johannes der Baptist ) in St. John's , Canada, is the metropolitan cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint John’s on the Atlantic coast. It bears the title of a minor basilica and is considered the mother church and symbol of Catholics in Newfoundland .
The cathedral was the largest construction project in the history of Newfoundland. Construction began in May 1839, after the laying of the foundation stone in May 1841, the church was completed with the inauguration on September 9, 1855. It was the largest church building in North America at the time and is still the second largest in Canada after the St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal .
history
The basilica, built between 1839 and 1855, sits on a ridge overlooking the city of St. John's. The church is not oriented on the liturgically correct east-west axis, but is oriented towards the strait of the port entrance of St. John's.
It was designed by the German architect Ole Joergen Schmidt for Bishop Michael Anthony Fleming, under whose successor John Mullock the church was completed. During the centenary in 1955, Pope Pius XII. the cathedral to the rank of minor basilica .
St. John's Basilica was part of a wave of church rebuilding during the Daniel O'Connell era and Catholic emancipation in Ireland and Newfoundland. When completed, St. John's Basilica was the largest Irish cathedral outside of Ireland. The basilica is one of the few buildings in St. John's that survived the great fire of 1892.
The basilica was designated as a National Historic Site of Canada in 1983 to honor its architectural uniqueness as one of the earliest North American examples of the Neo-Romanesque style and its central role as the spiritual home of Newfoundland Catholics. The building has been designated a Registered Heritage and Provincial Historic Site by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador.
architecture
The Basilica of St. John the Baptist is built in the shape of a Latin cross and in the Lombard - Neo-Romanesque style in the style of a basilica . The cathedral has the peculiarity among public buildings from 19th century North America that it was built with limestone and granite from Galway and Dublin, Ireland and 400,000 bricks from Hamburg , as well as local sandstone mined from St. John's and Kelly's Island in Conception Bay, which gives the cathedral its characteristic gray color. The exterior is 85 meters long and 65 meters wide. The two towers on the west side are 48 meters high. The total capacity of the basilica is around 2,500 people, but during the visit of Pope John Paul II in September 1984, 3,600 educators gathered in the basilica to greet the Pope.
The altar of the sacrifice , which stands at the beginning of the choir , houses the sculpture The Dead Christ , one of the most revered and valuable statues in the basilica. It was carved in Carrara marble in 1854 by the famous Irish sculptor John Hogan . The basilica also displays works by Ireland's most distinguished sculptor, John Edward Carew. The altars of St. Patrick and St. Brigid in the two side aisles are made of the same Egyptian travertine that was used by Pope Gregory XVI. was used to adorn the high altar of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls . A small amount of this stone remained in Rome, two parts of which were offered by Pope Bishop Mullock, who brought the stone to St. John's in 1856 to complete the interior of the basilica.
The upper part of the walls is decorated with twenty-eight leaded glass windows that are Irish, English and French in origin. All of the windows were gifts from religious societies such as the Benevolent Irish Society and date mainly back to the 1850s and 1870s.
The east tower contains nine bells, including the largest bell in the church, the St. John Bell . This two-ton bell was bought by Bishop Mullock in February 1850. Cast by Dubliner James Murphy, the bell was the largest ever cast in Ireland at the time and won a gold medal at the Dublin Exhibition of Irish Manufacturers. The west tower has eight bells. The three largest bells were cast by James Murphy in 1854 and 1857. The five smaller bells were cast in 1906 by Matthew O'Byrne of the Fountain Head Bell Foundry, also in Dublin.
In 1955 a large organ was installed by Casavant Frères from Québec as a memorial to the parishioners who died in the two world wars. The 4050 pipe organ is the largest instrument in Newfoundland and one of the largest organs east of Montreal.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist on gcatholic.org
Coordinates: 47 ° 34 '3.4 " N , 52 ° 42' 38.2" W.