The church of St Thomas, the Apostle and Howard-Flaget House is a historic

Roman Catholic church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

and home located at Bardstown, Nelson County,

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

. The church is a brick, cross-shaped plan with a round

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

. It was designed by

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

architect

Maximilian Godefroy J. Maximilian M. Godefroy (1765 – ''circa'' 1838) was a French-American architect. Godefroy was born in France and educated as a geographical/civil engineer. During the French Revolution he fought briefly on the Royalist side. Later, as an an ...

and built 1813–1816. It closely resembles Godefroy's earlier St. Mary's Seminary Chapel in Baltimore, another

Sulpician The Society of Priests of Saint-Sulpice (french: Compagnie des Prêtres de Saint-Sulpice), abbreviated PSS also known as the Sulpicians is a society of apostolic life of Pontifical Right for men, named after the Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris ...

church. St. Thomas is the oldest Roman Catholic church in Kentucky and considered "The Cradle of Catholicism in Kentucky." St. Thomas Roman Catholic Church and Howard-Flaget House was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1976.

References

External links

*
Saint Thomas Parish website
Roman Catholic churches completed in 1816 National Register of Historic Places in Bardstown, Kentucky Historic American Buildings Survey in Kentucky 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States Roman Catholic churches in Kentucky Churches in Nelson County, Kentucky 1816 establishments in Kentucky Houses completed in 1816 Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky Houses in Nelson County, Kentucky Clergy houses in the United States {{LouisvilleMSA-stub