St. Boniface Catholic Church (also known as St. Bonifacius Kirche Complex) is a historic church at 501-531 E. Liberty Street in

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

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 ...

. Established in 1836, St. Boniface was the first German Catholic parish in the city. It is also the oldest, continuously existent, Catholic parish in the city of

. The present structure was built in 1899 and added to the National Register in 1982 as St.Bonifacius Kirche Complex.

History

Saint Boniface Boniface, OSB ( la, Bonifatius; 675 – 5 June 754) was an English Benedictines, Benedictine monk and leading figure in the Anglo-Saxon mission to the Germanic parts of the Frankish Empire during the eighth century. He organised significant ...

was named for the “Apostle of Germany.” Diocesan clergy staffed Saint Boniface from its founding until 1849 when Bishop Martin John Spalding asked the

Franciscan priests , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

of Cincinnati, Ohio to take responsibility for the parish because of the high influx of German Catholic immigrants moving into the surrounding neighborhood, and the availability of German-speaking Franciscan priests. After 148 years, in 1998, the

Archdiocese of Louisville The Archdiocese of Louisville is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church that consists of twenty-four counties in the central American state of Kentucky, covering . As of 2018, the archdiocese contains appro ...

resumed responsibility for the parish.

Nativity Academy at St. Boniface

Founded in August 2003 by Fr. Tim Hogan, at that time pastor of St. Boniface parish, and administered by Sr. Paula Kleine-Kracht, OSU, Nativity Academy at St. Boniface was established as an independent private middle school in the Catholic tradition to educate urban youth. Along with the sponsorship of the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville, and the

Xaverian Brothers The Xaverian Brothers or Congregation of St. Francis Xavier are a Roman Catholic religious institute founded by Theodore James Ryken in Bruges, Belgium, in 1839 and named after Saint Francis Xavier. The institute is dedicated to education. Hist ...

, Nativity Academy teaches formal religion classes within the Catholic Faith. All students participate in ecumenical and Catholic prayer services, but are not required to be, or become Catholic.

References

External links

St. Boniface Catholic Church
official website Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky Gothic Revival church buildings in Kentucky Roman Catholic churches completed in 1899 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States Roman Catholic churches in Louisville, Kentucky National Register of Historic Places in Louisville, Kentucky 19th-century buildings and structures in Louisville, Kentucky 1836 establishments in Kentucky German-American culture in Louisville, Kentucky {{Louisville-struct-stub