Saint Paul Cathedral is the
mother church
Mother church or matrice is a term depicting the Christian Church as a mother in her functions of nourishing and protecting the believer. It may also refer to the primary church of a Christian denomination or diocese, i.e. a cathedral or a metro ...
of the
Diocese of Pittsburgh in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
. St. Paul's parish was established in 1833.
History
The original St. Paul's was dedicated in 1833.
When the diocese was established in 1843 St. Paul's Church was chosen as the cathedral. It burnt down in 1851, but was replaced with a larger building in 1855. The first two St. Paul Cathedrals were located on Grant Street downtown.
As the downtown area was claimed by industries, the residential areas shifted to other areas of the city. St. Paul's property was sold to the industrialist
Henry Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick (December 19, 1849 – December 2, 1919) was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, and played a major ...
.
The present
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 ...
structure was designed by
Egan and Prindeville of
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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and completed in 1906. They used
Cologne Cathedral
Cologne Cathedral (german: Kölner Dom, officially ', English: Cathedral Church of Saint Peter) is a Catholic cathedral in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and of the administration of the Archdiocese of ...
as their inspiration.
[ Philadelphia contractor Thomas Reilly built the new cathedral in the ]Oakland
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...
neighborhood. A pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...
was provided by Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...
. The cathedral serves the spiritual needs of approximately 3,000 worshipers. It became a contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distri ...
in the Schenley Farms Historic District
The Schenley Farms Historic District, also referred to as the Schenley Farms–Oakland Civic District, is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places that is located in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, ...
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 1983.[
Andrew Carnegie provided the cathedral's first pipe organ, originally a circa 1895 W. W. Kimball, which served into the 1950s. Under organist and choirmaster Paul Koch's leadership, the cathedral contracted with ]Aeolian-Skinner
Æolian-Skinner Organ Company, Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts was an American builder of a large number of pipe organs from its inception as the Skinner Organ Company in 1901 until its closure in 1972. Key figures were Ernest M. Skinner (1866– ...
to build a new large four-manual organ. This contract fell through upon the death of Aeolian-Skinner's president G. Donald Harrison
George Donald Harrison (G. Donald Harrison) (April 21, 1889 – June 14, 1956) was responsible for the design of some of the finest and largest pipe organs in the United States. Born in Huddersfield, England, he first worked as a patent attorney ...
, and after a tour of European organ manufacturers Koch selected Beckerath to manufacture the cathedral's new organ. Named "one of the monument organs of the continent", it was completed in 1962, and has undergone several major refurbishment projects since.
Gallery
File:Interior of Saint Paul Cathedral - Pittsburgh 01.jpg, Cathedral interior
File:Interior of Saint Paul Cathedral - Pittsburgh 02.jpg, Pipe organ
File:Interior of Saint Paul Cathedral - Pittsburgh 03.jpg, Altar and reredos
File:Interior of Saint Paul Cathedral - Pittsburgh 06.jpg, Cathedra
File:Interior of Saint Paul Cathedral - Pittsburgh 05.jpg, Ambo
See also
*List of Catholic cathedrals in the United States
The following is a list of the Catholic cathedrals in the United States. The Catholic Church in the United States comprises ecclesiastical territories called dioceses led by prelate bishops. Each bishop is assigned to a cathedral from which he ...
*List of cathedrals in the United States
This is a list of cathedrals in the United States, including both actual cathedrals (seats of bishops in episcopal Christian groups, such as Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy and the Armenian Apostolic Church) and a few prominent church ...
References
External links
Official Cathedral Site
Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh Official Site
{{NRHP
Religious organizations established in 1834
Roman Catholic churches completed in 1906
Paul Pittsburgh
Gothic Revival church buildings in Pennsylvania
Roman Catholic churches in Pittsburgh
Cathedrals in Pittsburgh
Historic district contributing properties in Pennsylvania
National Register of Historic Places in Pittsburgh
1834 establishments in Pennsylvania
20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States