St Michael's Catholic Church is a

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 on Moor Street in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

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. It received Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

status on 25 April 1952.

History

The building itself was first erected in 1726, but was burnt down the 1791 Priestley Riots, which targeted Dr.

Joseph Priestley Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted exp ...

who was the minister at the Unitarian since 1780. The Unitarian New Meeting House was rebuilt ten years later and reopened in 1803. When the New Meeting House became unsuitable for congregation, they started construction on a new place of worship on Broad Street. The New Meeting House was purchased, remodelled and consecrated as a Roman Catholic church in 1862, at the time catering for a large influx of

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and

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immigrants who had settled in the area, leading to the church being known as "the Italian church". Following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, the church was adopted by the exiled

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

ex-servicemen and their families, and again has seen an influx in Polish congregations following the integration of Poland into the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

in 2004, causing the congregation to grow fourfold. This has led to the creation of separate Polish Mass services. Prior to moving into St Michael's Church, the first Catholic mission in Birmingham was founded in Masshouse Lane in 1687 by the

Franciscan , 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 = , ...

Fathers. When this was burnt down in anti-Catholic riots in 1688,

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

continued to be offered in various improvised chapels until 1862.

References

External links

St Michael, Birmingham in the Archdiocese of Birmingham
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Michael's Catholic Church, Moor Street Moor Street Moor Street Grade II listed churches in the West Midlands (county) 1726 establishments in Great Britain Churches completed in 1862 Rebuilt churches in the United Kingdom 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United Kingdom Grade II listed Roman Catholic churches in England Unitarian chapels in England