St. Augustine Church (Philadelphia)

The St. Augustine Catholic Church is a historic Roman Catholic church building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States. The 1848 church dedicated style building was designed by Napoleon LeBrun Palladian and 1976 in the National Register of Historic Places.

The church was built to replace the old, in 1801, completed in St. Augustine Church. This first church housed the Sister Bell Liberty Bell. This church was burnt down in the anti-Catholic riots on 8 May 1844. The Augustinian sued the city because they did not grant sufficient protection. The municipality awarded the money was used to build the present church, was the foundation stone was laid on 27 May 1847. From established by the community organizations both Villanova University and the Philadelphia Orchestra emerged.

History

Old Church

The Roman Catholic Church sent the pastor Matthew Carr and John Rosseter to Philadelphia to buy land and build a church. The construction of the St. Augustine 's Church began in 1796th She was the first church of the Augustinian Hermits in the United States. After delay caused by the outbreak of yellow fever among workers and difficulties in financing the church building was completed in 1801. Among the donors participating in the financing were President George Washington, John Barry, Stephen Girard and Thomas Fitzsimons.

1811, the boys' school St. Augustine Academy was founded; the school had the largest theological library in the city. The origin of the Villanova University can be traced back to St. Augustine Academy. The community was also the center of musical activity in Philadelphia. In 1820, attended a musical performance for attention among musicians in the United States. On May 27, 1821 excommunicated Bishop Henry Conwell in the Church William Hogan. 1829 added a dome and a bell-tower of the building. End of the 1820s the Church of Independence Hall was the Sister Bell lent, which was cast to replace the Liberty Bell; the bell was hung in the church tower.

Due to the ongoing immigration of Irish Catholics grew up to the 1840s, the Catholic population in the city quickly, in 1838 half of the parishioners was born in Ireland and only one-sixth in the United States. The growing number of immigrants and the increasing proportion of the Catholic population fueled the nativist and anti-Catholic groups in Philadelphia. Tensions were exacerbated when rumors spread that Catholics tried banishment of the Bible from the public schools. Those rumors led to the Bible Riots.

The riots took on 6 May 1844 Kensington District of Pennsylvania began. The mob gathered on May 8, in front of St. Augustine 's Church. The city administration had posted armed men in the vicinity of the church and Mayor John Morin Scott urged the troublemakers to rest. Despite these calls, he was pelted with stones and the church set on fire. The church was destroyed. The crowd cheered when the dome collapsed. The St. Augustine Academy was also destroyed a large part of their book holdings.

New Church

In the first three months after the destruction of the church were allowed the community to use the St. Joseph's Church Fathers. A new temporary church, the Chapel of Our Lady of Consolidation was built by then. The Augustinian monks sued the city for damages in the amount of $ 80,000, because they have the church building insufficiently protected during the riots. The municipality argued that the Augustinians could not sue for violations of their civil rights because of the Augustinian Order was a foreign organization under the authority of the Pope. Moreover, argued that the monks had committed to poverty and therefore could not own property. The Augustinians, however demonstrated that the Augustinian Order in the United States had been registered in 1804, and to them were U.S. $ 45,000 to speak.

Construction of the new church began on 27 May 1847. In December 1848, the building was completed. The church was consecrated by Bishop Francis Kenrick and Archbishop John Hughes celebrated the Missa Solemnis. The church continued to be a center of musical activities. A music director later founded the Choral Society of Philadelphia, which was jointly involved with working at the church musicians in the founding of the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1900. The first performance of George Frideric Handel's Messiah in Philadelphia took place in the church.

On 15 June 1976, the St. Augustine 's Church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. By 1988, the number of parishioners from St. Augustine to less than a dozen had fallen, but in the 1990s the community grew again because they won members among the Filipino Catholics in Philadelphia and its suburbs. In December 1992, an exact replica of the Santo Niño de Cebu figure was consecrated and the Filipinos held a fair for Santo Niño. Also in December 1992, a severe wind storm damaged the steeple difficult. Debris which fell on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, which had to be so for three days closed to traffic. The damage was so extensive that the steeple had to be demolished. Due to the damage to the roof inside the church and art suffered in a water damage. On 18 October 1995, the new church tower was finished.

The church was used in two movies as the scene in 1999 in the thriller The Sixth Sense and 2007 for the action movie Shooter.

Architecture

The old St. Augustine Church was planning Nicholas Fagan, whose father, a merchant was providing most of the required for the construction of timber. The building was designed in neo-Romanesque style, 25 feet ( 7.5 m) wide and 62 feet ( 19 m ) long. Inside there was a life-size statue of the crucifixion, which the sculptor William Rush was created in 1810. The tower and the dome that were added in 1829, planned by the architect William Strickland, whose past work and the Merchant's Exchange and belonging Second Bank of the United States.

The new building was designed by architect Napoleon LeBrun, who also designed the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. This building is an example of the Palladian. The main altar is made of white marble and Mexican onyx columns that line the tabernacle. The altar is framed by an arch, which is supported by Corinthian columns. Above the altar is a dome-shaped skylight. Through stained glass windows, each dedicated to a saint, allow the light to enter the church.