St. John the Baptist Catholic Church is a historic Roman Catholic church in Marion Township, Mercer County, Ohio, United States. Located in the unincorporated community of Maria Stein, it is the home of an active congregation and has been recognized as a historic site because of its well-preserved late nineteenth-century

Romanesque Revival architecture Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

Parish history

The community of St. Johns was established in 1833. When the Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Dayton Railway expanded through Mercer County some years later, its surveyors chose a path through the small community of Maria Stein, to the west of St. Johns. As these two communities were separated by only , business interests migrated to the vicinity of the railroad,Scranton, S.S. ''History of Mercer County, Ohio and Representative Citizens''. Chicago: Biographical, 1907. and the two communities eventually merged under the name of Maria Stein. Large numbers of Catholics from northern Europe settled in southern Mercer County and surrounding regions in the early nineteenth century because of the activities of the

Society of the Precious Blood The Society of the Precious Blood is an Anglican religious order of contemplative sisters with convents in England, Lesotho and South Africa. The sisters follow the Rule of St Augustine. History The Order dates its history from 1905 when Mot ...

in the region.Brown, Mary Ann and Mary Niekamp. '. National Park Service, July 1978. Accessed 2010-03-03. The center of the society's activities was the

Maria Stein Convent The Shrine of the Holy Relics in Maria Stein, Ohio is the second largest collection of relics in the United States. It is a part of the historic Maria Stein Convent. History Father Francis de Sales Brunner, the missionary who led the S ...

, located less than north of St. Johns. From this convent was derived the name of the community. St. John the Baptist Parish was founded in St. Johns in 1837 by priests of the Society from the village of Minster to the east; at that time, it was dedicated to John the Baptist. A small log church was erected to house the congregation, but the number of parishioners soon grew to the point that it was inadequate to house the congregation. Accordingly, a brick church was built to replace the log structure. As the membership continued to grow, multiple additions were built onto the original structure. By the 1880s, the parish had decided to replace the old brick church entirely with a yet larger building. The new and current church was built between 1888-1894 using 135,000 bricks and at a total cost of $43,354.19 paid from a building fund and special collections (Approx. $1.5 Million in 2022 dollars). Today, St. John's remains an active parish of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. It is part of the Marion Catholic Community cluster, along with Precious Blood parish in Chickasaw, Nativity of the Blessed Virgin parish in Cassella,

St. Rose parish ST, St, or St. may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Stanza, in poetry * Suicidal Tendencies, an American heavy metal/hardcore punk band * Star Trek, a science-fiction media franchise * Summa Theologica, a compendium of Catholic philosophy ...

in St. Rose, and St. Sebastian parish in

Sebastian Sebastian may refer to: People * Sebastian (name), including a list of persons with the name Arts, entertainment, and media Films and television * ''Sebastian'' (1968 film), British spy film * ''Sebastian'' (1995 film), Swedish drama film ...

. The entire cluster is a part of the St. Marys

Deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residenc ...

Architecture

The current St. John's Church was completed in 1888 at a cost of $40,145. Its architecture, which has been ranked among the leading churches of Mercer County, features a massive tower that was designed to house four tower clocks. Large amounts of sandstone are used to trim the corners of the brick church, which can be entered through three doors at the base of the tower. The church is built on a stone foundation and is topped with a gabled roof of asphalt. Many rounded

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural element are typical of Gothic church edifices of the earliest period. Lancet wi ...

s of

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

illuminate the interior; among the most prominent of its windows are those of the

sacristy A sacristy, also known as a vestry or preparation room, is a room in Christian churches for the keeping of vestments (such as the alb and chasuble) and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records. The sacristy is usually located ...

, which feature deep blue stained glass. The church's heavily decorated interior includes elaborate altars and a

reredos A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images. The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for ex ...

built in the Romanesque Revival style. A renovation project in the 1960s removed many of the exterior decorative features, including tops of the side pilasters, trim on the rounded windows and tower, and border around the upper exterior nave. The church interior has not been renovated as extensively. Architectural historians have divided the Precious Blood-related churches of western Ohio into four generations. St. John's is typical of the churches of the third generation, which are generally

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

structures with a single central tower. It was designed by German-born architect, Adolphus Druiding (1838-1899) of Chicago and built by Anton DeCurtins (1829-1895) of nearby, Carthagena.

Related buildings

Two different

Catholic school Catholic schools are pre-primary, primary and secondary educational institutions administered under the aegis or in association with the Catholic Church. , the Catholic Church operates the world's largest religious, non-governmental school syste ...

s have been operated by the parish. Its high school building (now demolished), erected in 1930, was built on the opposite side of State Route 119 from the church; after some years as a high school, it was converted into an

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

.Brown, Mary Ann. ''Ohio Historic Inventory Nomination: Maria Stein Catholic Church''. Ohio Historical Society, February 1977. An earlier school, established and closed on unknown dates, was formerly operated in association with St. John's Church. In 1907, this school's 200 students were taught by the Sisters of the Precious Blood. Located immediately to the east of the church is a

rectory A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of religion. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, parsonage, rectory or vicarage. Function A clergy house is typically ow ...

, built in 1906. Designed by the DeCurtins Brothers in a combination of architectural styles, its walls are built of brick, laid in a stretcher bond; the square structure rests on a stone foundation and is covered by a slate roof that is pierced by multiple

dormer windows A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a Roof pitch, pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the ...

.Niekamp, Mary. ''Ohio Historic Inventory Nomination: Saint John Catholic Rectory''. Ohio Historical Society, n.d. In addition to its buildings, the parish maintains a cemetery adjacent to the church.

Preservation

In 1977, St. John's Church and its associated rectory were recorded by the Ohio Historic Inventory, a historic preservation program of the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office. This architectural survey ranked both buildings in good condition with no threats to their historic integrity. Two years later, the church and rectory were listed together on the National Register of Historic Places because of their architectural significance. More than thirty other buildings in western Ohio related to the Society of the Precious Blood were listed on the National Register at the same time as part of a multiple property submission. These historic buildings, both churches and other church-related structures, are the namesake of the region of rural western Ohio known as the " Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches." St. John's Church lies in the middle of this heavily Catholic area, just away from its center at the Maria Stein Convent.

References

External links