St. Augustine Church (Philadelphia)
The St. Augustine Catholic Church is a historic Roman Catholic church building in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania in the United States . The Palladian- style church building , consecrated in 1848, was designed by Napoleon LeBrun and inscribed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 .
The church was built to replace the old St. Augustine Church, completed in 1801. This first church housed the Sister Bell of the Liberty Bell . This church was burned down in the anti-Catholic riots on May 8, 1844. The Augustinians sued the city for not providing adequate protection. The money awarded to the community was used to build today's church, the foundation stone of which was laid on May 27, 1847. Both Villanova University and the Philadelphia Orchestra emerged from community-based organizations .
history
Old church
The Roman Catholic Church sent Revs Matthew Carr and John Rosseter to Philadelphia to buy land and build a church. Construction on this St. Augustine's Church began in 1796. It was the first Augustinian Hermit Church in the United States. After a delay due to the outbreak of yellow fever among the workers and difficulties in financing, the building of the church was completed in 1801. Among the donors involved in funding were President George Washington , John Barry , Stephen Girard, and Thomas Fitzsimons .
In 1811 the St. Augustine Academy boys school was founded; the school had the largest theological library in town. The origins of Villanova University can be traced back to the St. Augustine Academy. The community also became the center of Philadelphia musical activity. In 1820, a musical performance attracted attention among musicians in the United States. On May 27, 1821 , Bishop Henry Conwell excommunicated William Hogan in Church . In 1829 a dome and church tower were added to the building. In the late 1820s, Independence Hall loaned the Church the Sister Bell , which was cast to replace the Liberty Bell ; the bell was hung in the church tower.
Due to the continued immigration of Irish Catholics, the city's Catholic population grew rapidly by the 1840s, with half of the parishioners born in Ireland in 1838 and only one-sixth in the United States. The growing number of immigrants and the increasing proportion of the Catholic population fueled the nativist and anti-Catholic groups in Philadelphia. Tensions heightened when rumors surfaced that Catholics were attempting to ban the Bible from public schools. These rumors led to the Bible Riots .
The riots began on May 6, 1844 in the Kensington District of Pennsylvania. The mob gathered outside St. Augustine's Church on May 8th. The town council had armed men posted near the church and Mayor John Morin Scott called on the troublemakers to quiet down. Despite these requests, stones were thrown at him and the church was set on fire. The church was destroyed. The crowd cheered as the dome collapsed. The St. Augustine Academy was also destroyed along with a large part of its book inventory.
New Church
For the first three months after the church was destroyed, the congregation was allowed to use St. Joseph's Fathers Church. A new temporary church, the Our Lady of Consolidation Chapel , had been built by then. The Augustinian monks sued the city for $ 80,000 in damages for inadequately protecting the church building during the riots. The city administration objected that the Augustinians could not sue for violations of their civil rights because the Augustinian order was a foreign organization under the authority of the Pope. He also argued that the monks committed themselves to poverty and therefore could not own property. However, the Augustinians proved that the Augustinian Order had been registered in the United States in 1804, and they were awarded $ 45,000.
Construction of the new church began on May 27, 1847. In December 1848, the building was completed. The Church was consecrated by Bishop Francis Patrick Kenrick and Archbishop John Hughes celebrated the Missa solemnis . The church continued to be a center of musical activity. A music director later founded the Choral Society of Philadelphia, which, along with church musicians, helped found the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1900. The first performance of George Frideric Handel's Messiah in Philadelphia took place in the church.
On June 15, 1976, St. Augustine's Church was added to the National Register of Historic Places . By 1988, the St. Augustine parish had dropped to less than a dozen, but by the 1990s the parish grew again as it gained membership among Filipino Catholics in Philadelphia and its suburbs. In December 1992, an exact replica of the figure of Santo Niño de Cebú was dedicated and the Filipinos held a mass for Santo Niño. Also in December 1992, a severe storm damaged the church tower badly. Debris from it fell on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge , which had to be closed to traffic for three days. The damage was so extensive that the church tower had to be demolished. Damage to the roof caused water damage to the interior of the church and works of art inside. On October 18, 1995, the new church tower was ready.
The church has been used as a location in two films, the 1999 thriller The Sixth Sense and the 2007 action film Shooter .
architecture
The old St. Augustine Church was designed by Nicholas Fagan, whose father-in-law, a merchant , supplied most of the timber required for construction . The structure was designed in the neo-Romanesque style, 25 feet (7.5 m) wide and 62 feet (19 m) long. Inside, there was a life-size statue of the Crucifixion created by sculptor William Rush in 1810. The tower and dome, which were added in 1829, designed the architect William Strickland , whose works include the Merchant's Exchange and the Second Bank of the United States .
The new building was planned by the architect Napoleon LeBrun, who also designed the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. This building is an example of Palladianism . The main altar is made of white marble and Mexican onyx columns line the tabernacle . The altar is framed by an arch supported by Corinthian columns. There is a dome-shaped skylight above the altar. Stained glass windows, each dedicated to a saint, allow light to enter the church.
See also
Web links
- St. Augustine Catholic Church website
- St. Augustine Church @ Historic American Buildings Survey
- St. Augustine Church @ Philadelphia Architects and Buildings
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Olde St. Augustine Church ( English ) Independence Hall Association. Retrieved October 30, 2010.
- ^ A b John Thomas Scharf, Thompson Westcott: History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884 . LH Everts & co., 1884, pp. 1376-1379.
- ^ Margaret E. Fitzgerald: The Philadelphia Nativists Riots ( English ) Irish Cultural Society of the Garden City Area. 1992. Archived from the original on January 3, 2008. Retrieved October 30, 2010.
- ↑ Ernest C. Peixotto , Agnes Repplier: Philadelphia: The Place and the People . The Macmillan Company, 1898, pp. 348-349.
- ^ National Register Information System . National Register of Historic Places. Archived from the original on May 13, 2008. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 14, 2008.
- ↑ Vernon Clark: Telling the stories of cherished places: Project puts oral histories on videotape . In: The Philadelphia Inquirer . March 4, 2007.
- ↑ Peter Landry: In Phila., Storm had Historic Impact St. Augustine's Damaged Steeple will Come Down Today . In: The Philadelphia Inquirer . December 13, 1992.
- ↑ Peter Tobia: A Church, a Steeple and Many Thankful People . In: The Philadelphia Inquirer . October 19, 1995.
Coordinates: 39 ° 57 '19.5 " N , 75 ° 8' 48.9" W.