Sunday, August 5, 2018

Cleveland Mass Mob XXX — Saint Stanislaus

Cleveland Mass Mob XXX
Saint Stanislaus
11.30 a.m. 7 October 2018
East 65th & Forman

This will be a second mobbing, four years after the first.

The parish of St. Stanislaus was formed in 1873, and at first worshipped at St. Mary's of the Flats (the first Catholic church and later cathedral in Cleveland). In 1879 they moved to the Franciscan St. Joseph on Woodland. In 1881 a new church was built in South Broadway area of Newburgh called Warszawa. The present church was built from 1886 to 1891. St. Stan's exterior was built in Gothic revival style. Of the Catholic churches in the US, built in that style, only St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan is larger.  The church was 232 feet high, with two steeples. St. Michael the Archangel, on the west side, had its taller steeple at 232 feet also. At the time, these were the two tallest buildings in Cleveland. A tornado struck on 21 April of 1909, the twin steeples toppled, and a child was killed. The steeple on St. Wenceslas on Broadway also fell. St. Stan's was rebuilt to a height 122 feet high.

St. Stanislaus is gothic on the outside, on the inside it is baroque, it is the most rococo church in Cleveland. During the year, it is often well garlanded with plants and other decorations. In addition to being a parish church, it is also a shrine church, and the co-cathedral of Cleveland. The shrine is that of St. Stanislaus Szczepanowski (Bishop and Martyr). Above is a window depicting King Boleslaus II the Bold murdering Stanislaus. Stanislaus was bishop of Krakow, a successor to the office was Karol Wojtyla (St. John Paul II), there are items of his in the church.

Saint Stanislaus is a Polish parish church, and the architectural style is loosely called the Polish Cathedral Style in America. Many such parish churches across the country were built on a large scale. Cleveland has a few of them, and we have mobbed them.