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Old St. Patrick’s Church

Completed: 1856

Architects: Two of Chicago’s earliest practicing architects Augustus Bauer and Asher Carter

Location: 700 West Adams Street, Chicago, IL 60661.

In 1977, Old St. Patrick’s was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The oldest extant church in Chicago. The parish was founded by Irish immigrants in 1846, second to St. Mary’s of 1833. The congregation was mostly English speaking and lived west of the Chicago River.   Old St. Patrck’s is the first English-speaking parish in the city. It is one of the few buildings to survive the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Its survival makes it the oldest public building in the City of Chicago. Today, Old St. Patrick’s is home to a membership of more than 3,000 households and innumerable friends. Old St. Patrick’s is known for hosting an annual summer block party, which it said to be the “world’s largest” [very controversial claim].

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SAINT PATRICK was a 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Known as the “Apostle of Ireland”, he is the primary patron saint of Ireland, along with Saints Brigit and Columba. He is also venerated in the Orthodox Church as Equal-to-the-Apostles. The dates of Patrick’s life cannot be fixed with certainty but, on a widespread interpretation, he was active as a missionary in Ireland during the second half of the fifth century.
Saint Patrick’s Day is observed on 17 March, which is said to be the date of his death. It is celebrated inside and outside Ireland as a religious and cultural holiday. In the dioceses of Ireland, it is both a solemnity and a holy day of obligation; it is also a celebration of Ireland itself.
Legend credits St. Patrick with teaching the Irish about the doctrine of the Holy Trinity by showing people the shamrock, a three-leafed plant, using it to illustrate the Christian teaching of three persons in one God. The shamrock has since become a central symbol for St Patrick’s Day.
The absence of snakes in Ireland gave rise to the legend that they had all been banished by St. Patrick chasing them into the sea after they attacked him during a 40-day fast he was undertaking on top of a hill.
There are two main types of crosses associated with St. Patrick, the cross pattée and the saltire.

 

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The church building is of Milwaukee common brick set on a Lemont limestone base. The trim is also Lemont stone. Along with the other buildings in Chicago, the church was raised about 8 feet in 1871. The octagonal towers date from 1885. The steeply pointed southern tower represents the Roman Church of the West; and the onion domed northern tower represents the Byzantine Orthodox Church of the East. Together they symbolize the universality of the Church.

 

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From the website.. Old St. Patrick’s Church: History.. click here..

Since its founding by Irish immigrants on Easter morning in 1846, Old St. Patrick’s has been interwoven in the life and history of the City of Chicago. Founded in 1846 as the first English-speaking parish in the city, the current church building was designed in a Romanesque style by two of Chicago’s earliest practicing architects Augustus Bauer and Asher Carter. The cornerstone was laid on May 23, 1853, and the building was dedicated on Christmas Day, 1856.

Old St. Patrick’s is one of the few buildings to survive the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The Great Chicago Fire missed Old St. Patrick’s Church by just two blocks. Its survival makes it the oldest public building in the City of Chicago.

 

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MAIN ALTER is crafted by Sebastian Buscher. It features a towering statue of St. Patrick as well as numerous angels. As in so many Catholic parishes of limited means, the wooden altar was painted white to give the illusion of marble.

 

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STAINED GLASS WINDOWS: The windows are of special note and the most important objects in the church. The nave windows, the skylight canopy over the altar, and the windows in and around the apse, show ornamental interlace based on the Book of Kells in Ireland. The designs and work is by Thomas A. O’Shaughnessy and completed by him in the studios of Kinsella Art Glass Co. of Chicago. They were installed between 1912 and 1922.

Not a single window recalls the Immaculate Conception, the Nativity of Christ, the Feast of Cana, or the Crucifixion and Death and Resurrection of Jesus. Instead, the artist honors the great saints of ireland: St. Patrick and Brigid (two windows each) and saints who were hardly household names among the American Irish: Finbar, Colman, Sennan, Columbanus, Attracta, Columbkille, Brendan, Carthage, and Comgall. There is even a window dedicated to Brian Boru, the first high king of Ireland.

Ref: article by Ellen Skerrett, “Tracing the Artistic Vision of Thomas O’Shaughnessy” click here..
“O’Shaughnessy breathed new life into the city’s oldest public building over the next decade, creating luminous windows of colored opalescent glass and intricate Celtic stencils on the walls and ceiling. In a radical break with the conventions of his day, O’Shaughnessy looked to Ireland’s past for inspiration. Later in life he would claim that during a 1905–1906 trip to Europe he was one of the last people allowed to sketch directly from the Book of Kells at Trinity College, Dublin. Whether myth or fact, his 1913 canopy over the main altar, composed of more than 50,000 pieces of “translucent mosaic enamel glass,” bears a striking resemblance to the Four Evangelists in the ancient illuminated manuscript. During a lecture to the American Institute of Graphic Arts in New York in 1917, Dr. James J. Walsh ascribed the dramatic change that had taken place in St. Patrick’s “dingy interior,” to “the influence of the Book of Kells all over the walls.”

The finest window is the “Window of  Faith, Hope and Charity”,  a triptych facing east. Also known as the Terrence MacSwiney Memorial Triptych. It is done in art nouveau style. There is no paint used on this window. Various widths of lead lines are used to indicate features and outlines. The glass is very pale and the juxtaposition of colors is startling at times. It is arguably the finest window of its type in the Midwest.

 

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RELATED LINKS
Places of Worship: Churches & more.. click here..
Places of Worship: Temples & more.. click here..
Open House Chicago [OHC].. click here..

Photo Gallery / Church Art and Architecture.. click here..

Home: Public Art in Chicago.. click here..

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