The Proto-Cathedral of St. James the Greater (formerly St. James Catholic Church) is a church building and

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

of the

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 ...

located in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The parish is part of the Archdiocese of Seattle and traces its roots to the initial arrival of

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

priests in the Oregon Country in the 1830s; its first dedicated church building was built in 1846. The church was elevated to 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 ...

when the Diocese of Nesqually (the original name of the Archdiocese of Seattle) was established in 1850; the present-day church building was completed in 1885. It was reverted to a parish church when the present-day St. James Cathedral opened in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

in 1907. The church building was listed on the

Washington Heritage Register The Washington Heritage Register is an official list of sites and properties found throughout Washington state, United States. The Washington Heritage Register is administered by the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preserva ...

in 1986. The church was formally dedicated as a proto-cathedral, i.e., former cathedral, in 2013.

History

In the 1830s, French Canadian Catholic employees of the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...

petitioned the

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

in their native

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

to send priests to what was then known as the Oregon Country.

François Norbert Blanchet François Norbert Blanchet (September 30, 1795 – June 18, 1883) was a French Canadian-born missionary priest and prelate of the Catholic Church who was instrumental in establishing the Catholic Church presence in the Pacific Northwest. He was on ...

and

Modeste Demers Modeste Demers (11 October 1809 – 28 July 1871) was a Roman Catholic Bishop and missionary in the Oregon Country. A native of Quebec, he traveled overland to the Pacific Northwest and preached in the Willamette Valley and later in what would beco ...

were sent to the area and arrived at

Fort Vancouver Fort Vancouver was a 19th century fur trading post that was the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department, located in the Pacific Northwest. Named for Captain George Vancouver, the fort was located on the northern bank of th ...

in 1838. Blanchet and Demers held Masses in various buildings within the fort, and Catholics often had to share worship space with

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

s, an arrangement that did not please either group. In 1845 Blanchet gained the company's permission to build a new church just outside the fort, and the wooden building was dedicated as St. James Church on May 30, 1846. In July 1846, the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

established three Catholic

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, pro ...

s in the Oregon Country: Oregon City,

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are o ...

, and

Walla Walla Walla Walla can refer to: * Walla Walla people, a Native American tribe after which the county and city of Walla Walla, Washington, are named * Place of many rocks in the Australian Aboriginal Wiradjuri language, the origin of the name of the town ...

Augustin-Magloire Blanchet Augustin Magloire Alexandre Blanchet (22 August 1797 – 25 February 1887) was a French Canadian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the first bishop of the now-defunct Diocese of Walla Walla and of the Diocese of Nesqually in pr ...

, François Blanchet's younger brother, was appointed bishop of Walla Walla. The Walla Walla diocese was abandoned shortly after, in the wake of the

Whitman massacre The Whitman massacre (also known as the Walla Walla massacre and referred to as the Tragedy at Waiilatpu by the National Park Service) was the killing of the Washington missionaries Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa, along with eleven others ...

; however, on May 31, 1850, the Vatican under Pope Pius IX established the Diocese of Nesqually, with Augustin Blanchet as its bishop. Blanchet chose to have his new diocese headquartered in Vancouver, and chose the existing St. James Church as his

. The church was formally dedicated as St. James Cathedral on January 23, 1851. Blanchet retired in 1879 and his successor, Egidius Junger, set out to build a new cathedral in Vancouver. In 1883 they chose

architect Donald Mackay, who had already established his reputation with the Catholic church by designing a new sanctuary and hospital in Seattle and in Vancouver with the design of the Clark County Courthouse the year prior. The design was completed by March 1883, construction began in 1884 and the -long cathedral was dedicated as St. James Cathedral the following year. The original church, meanwhile, burned down in 1889. Junger's successor,

Edward John O'Dea Edward John O'Dea (November 23, 1856 – December 25, 1932) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Nesqually in Washington State from 1896 until 1907. When the Vatican renamed the diocese as t ...

, realized that Vancouver was no longer the economic and population center it once was. In 1903, O'Dea transferred the

episcopal see An episcopal see is, in a practical use of the phrase, the area of a bishop's ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Phrases concerning actions occurring within or outside an episcopal see are indicative of the geographical significance of the term, mak ...

of the Diocese of Nisqually to

and immediately set out to build a new cathedral there. The diocese was officially renamed the Diocese of Seattle in September 1907, and the present-day St. James Cathedral in Seattle was dedicated in December of that year. St. James Cathedral in Vancouver, meanwhile, was reverted to a parish church, as it had been before the diocese's establishment, and remains a parish church to the present day. In 2013, Archbishop

J. Peter Sartain James Peter Sartain (born June 6, 1952), better known as Peter Sartain, is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the fifth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Seattle in Washington State from 2010 to 2019. He previously ...

announced that St. James Church would be formally designated as a proto-cathedral (former cathedral) in order to recognize the church's historical significance to the Archdiocese of Seattle. It was formally dedicated by Archbishop Sartain on October 25, 2013, and the church was renamed the Proto-Cathedral of St. James the Greater. Since 2014, masses during Advent and on

Solemnities In the liturgical calendar of the Roman Rite, a solemnity is a feast day of the highest rank celebrating a mystery of faith such as the Trinity, an event in the life of Jesus, his mother Mary, his earthly father Joseph, or another important sain ...

have been celebrated ''

ad orientem ''Ad orientem'', meaning "to the east" in Ecclesiastical Latin, is a phrase used to describe the eastward orientation of Christian prayer and Christian worship, comprising the preposition ''ad'' (toward) and ''oriens'' (rising, sunrise, east), ...

'', that is the same direction as the congregants and towards the "liturgical east," as was the norm before

Vatican II The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the , or , was the 21st ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. The council met in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome for four periods (or sessions), each lasting between 8 and ...

, and since 2016 all masses at St. James are now celebrated ''ad orientem''. This change was made at the encouragement of Cardinal

Robert Sarah Robert Sarah (; born 15 June 1945) is a Guinean prelate of the Catholic Church. A cardinal since 20 November 2010, he was prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments from 23 November 2014 to 20 Februar ...

, the head of the Vatican's

Congregation for Divine Worship it, Dicastero per il Culto Divino e la Disciplina dei Sacramenti , type = Dicastery , seal = Coat of arms Holy See.svg , seal_size = 100px , seal_caption = Coat of arms of the Holy See , logo = , p ...

. Blending Latin and English, masses at the Proto-Cathedral feature

Gregorian chant Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin (and occasionally Greek) of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe durin ...

, English chant and

polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...

References

External links

Proto-Cathedral of St. James the Greater
official website {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint James Catholic Church, Vancouver, Washington French-Canadian culture in the United States Roman Catholic churches in Washington (state) Buildings and structures in Vancouver, Washington Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle Roman Catholic churches completed in 1885 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States Tourist attractions in Vancouver, Washington Former cathedrals in the United States Roman Catholic cathedrals in Washington (state) Quebec diaspora

History

See also

References

External links