The Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, also known as ''Santísimo Redentor'', is a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

under the authority of the

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York The Archdiocese of New York ( la, Archidiœcesis Neo-Eboracensis) is an ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church ( particularly the Roman Catholic or Latin Church) located in the State of New York. It encompasses the borough ...

, located at 161–165 East 3rd Street between Avenues A and B in the East Village neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The parish was founded in 1844 by the

Redemptorist Fathers The Redemptorists officially named the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer ( la, links=no, Congregatio Sanctissimi Redemptoris), abbreviated CSsR,is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of pontifical right for men (priests and brother ...

, and the church, which looks more like a

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...

than a parish church, was built in 1851–1852, designed by an architect named Walsh., p.147Remigius Lafort, S.T.D., Censor,
The Catholic Church in the United States of America: Undertaken to Celebrate the Golden Jubilee of His Holiness, Pope Pius X. Volume 3: The Province of Baltimore and the Province of New York, Section 1: Comprising the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn, Buffalo and Ogdensburg Together with some Supplementary Articles on Religious Communities of Women.
'. (New York City: The Catholic Editing Company, 1914), p.351. The eclectic architecture is a mix of

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

Romanesque styles, an experiment not uncommon in the Victorian era. When originally built, the church had a 250-foot (76.2 m) Baroque tower, but in the 1913 renovation supervised by architect Paul Schulz, the tower was simplified and shortened. The ''

AIA Guide to New York City The ''AIA Guide to New York City'' by Norval White, Elliot Willensky, and Fran Leadon is an extensive catalogue with descriptions, critique and photographs of significant and noteworthy architecture throughout the five boroughs of New York City. ...

'' calls the church "a powerful, deeply modeled, limestone pile, one of the tallest structures (except the "projects") in the community" and dates the church to the 1870s. The church was once the most important in Manhattan's " Little Germany" and was often referred to as the "German Catholic Cathedral" of New York by the German Catholic community. This parish grew out of the first German Catholic parish in New York City, St. Nicholas' Church, which has since been closed and demolished. The grandiosity of this church is synonymous with the importance of the German Catholic community in the middle of the nineteenth century in New York City. At that time, German Catholics were the second largest Catholic group in the city after the Irish Catholic community. Most Holy Redeemer originally had a primary school run by the School Sisters of Notre Dame which taught its students entirely in the

German language German ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and Official language, official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Ita ...

for most of the nineteenth century. More than a dozen children died in a fire at the school in 1883. In 2014, the

Church of the Nativity The Church of the Nativity, or Basilica of the Nativity,; ar, كَنِيسَةُ ٱلْمَهْد; el, Βασιλική της Γεννήσεως; hy, Սուրբ Ծննդեան տաճար; la, Basilica Nativitatis is a basilica located in B ...

on Second Avenue between Second and 3rd Streets was merged into Holy Redeemer. The new parish is now known as Most Holy Redeemer/Nativity Parish.Most Holy Redeemer/Nativity Parish
/ref> In 2018, the Redemptorist Order withdrew from the parish and the parish is now ministered by priests of the Archdiocese. The church is a pilgrimage shrine dedicated to

Our Lady of Perpetual Help Our Lady of Perpetual Help (also known as Our Lady of Perpetual Succour) is a Roman Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with a 15th-century Byzantine icon with an alleged Marian apparition. The icon is believed to have ori ...

. Today, many of the church's parishioners refer to it as ''Santísimo Redentor''.

References

External links

Parish website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Most Holy Redeemer Church (New York City) Roman Catholic churches in Manhattan Roman Catholic churches completed in 1852 Roman Catholic churches completed in 1913 Victorian architecture in New York City Baroque Revival architecture in New York City Romanesque Revival church buildings in New York City Redemptorist churches in the United States East Village, Manhattan German-American culture in New York City 1844 establishments in New York (state) 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States