Original plan for St. Mary’s Cathedral with spire, circa 1853

On January 8, 1880, San Francisco’s beloved local character Emperor Norton dropped dead in front of Old St. Mary’s Cathedral. It was in some way the end of an era for the city and the cathedral of the Roman Catholic archdiocese.

The story began in 1851 when Bishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany arrived in California as bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles. He used the San Carlos presido chapel there as his pro-cathedral. In 1853 Alemany moved the pro-cathedral St. Francis Church on Vallejo Street when the Archdiocese of San Francisco was established. At the time, St. Francis and Mission Dolores were the only Catholic churches in the city. It was at St. Francis Church, then a small wooden structure, that Alemany was first welcomed as bishop. On that occasion, he spoke in English, Spanish and French; from the very beginning, ethnic diversity was a given in California.

Of course the cathedral for the diocese was to have been in Santa Barbara, but the grand plans of Bishop Thaddeus Amat never amounted to more than foundational stones being dragged to the proposed site. But plans were already afoot to build a great cathedral for San Francisco even as the archdiocese was established. The land was given by a prominent layman, John Sullivan, amid the usual criticism that the site was too far from the center of the city. Sullivan also gave land for Calvary Cemetery, St. Mary’s College on Larkin Street, Presentation Convent at Powell and Lombard, built Old St. Patrick (later the pro-cathedral) and dutifully supported many other Catholic institutions of the city. When Sullivan’s home was destroyed by fire in 1850, Bishop Alemany wrote him, “I can never forget the first $20 dollar gold piece I received in San Francisco was from your dear wife. Here is $5,000; take it, build up your houses. Repay me when you can.”

Architects William Crane and John England were retained to design the gothic revival church, originally envisioned to have a tall steeple, which was never completed. Many San Francisco residents were surprised when they answered a knock at the door to find the archbishop on their doorstep, asking for gifts to build St. Mary’s Cathedral; Alemany himself went door to door to raise the funds.

Old St. Mary’s Cathedal circa 1856

The foundation of St. Mary’s was begun and the cornerstone laid in 1853 at California and DuPont (now Grant Avenue) Streets. The stones for the foundation were cut and quarried in China. Brick was imported from New England around the horn, and local lumber was bought at highly inflated gold rush prices. To raise funds, pews were rented by auction, a common practice at the time.

Work continued feverishly through Christmas Eve of 1854, when workers were shooed out late in the evening so that the dedication could occur. The new cathedral was filled beyond capacity and a huge throng spilled out onto California Street, with rowdy San Franciscans literally hanging from the rafters of the unfinished church, their boots dangling above the crowded nave. A full orchestra provided the music for the dedication liturgy—Haydn’s Mass no. 3. Even without the steeple originally envisioned, St. Mary’s Cathedral was the tallest building west of the Mississippi and the pride of San Francisco. The full title of the church was the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception; the first cathedral church in the world to bear that title, as the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception had been defined by Pius IX only 17 days before the cathedral’s dedication. It was the first church to be built as a cathedral in California.

Old St. Mary’s Cathedral circa 1870

As Civil War loomed, a controversy erupted in San Francisco over a practice that came to be known as the “flagging of churches.” The churches of the city competed with each other to raise enormous American flags to demonstrate their solidarity with the Union. This hyper-patriotic frenzy reached its peak on July 4, 1861. Newspaper editorials called on Archbishop Alemany to follow suit and display the flag in St. Mary’s Cathedral. Alemany refused. He felt the flag did not belong in a building dedicated to the worship of God.

As the city continued its exponential growth, it became apparent that a new cathedral was needed. Archbishop Alemany once again began raising funds for a new cathedral. His new coadjutor, Bishop Patrick Riordan, had been ordained bishop in Chicago in 1883. The weary Alemany—who had been begging for retirement for years—entrusted the bulk of the project to Riordan, who was named archbishop of San Francisco in 1884, much to Alemany’s relief. On May 24, 1885, Alemany wept as he celebrated his last mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral, and shortly thereafter he returned to his native Spain.

The second St. Mary’s Cathedral

The cornerstone for the new Romanesque Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption was laid in 1890 at the corner of Van Ness and O’Farrell in the Tenderloin District. The Chicago architectural firm of Egan and Prindeville designed the red-brick structure. Among their existing works is St. Paul’s Cathedral in Pittsburgh (1906). Archbishop Riordan declined to live in the humble two-room shack Alemany had called home, and moved to the rectory of St. John the Baptist on Eddy Street while construction of the new cathedral was underway. When the new cathedral was dedicated in 1891, that parish was suppressed and its territory became a part of the cathedral parish. Old St. Mary’s Cathedral was given to the Paulists in 1894 to run as a parish church.

The second St. Mary’s Cathedral

On the morning of April 18, 1906 an enormous earthquake shook the city. This singular event in California history wold destroy much of the city; what had not crumbled in the first temblor was likely destroyed by fires that raged throughout the city for four days. At Old St. Mary’s Cathedral, there was little damage; the cross and pediment fell from the tower, some finials fell inside, some buttresses were damaged. As a precaution, the sacred vessels, vestments and some furnishings were sent to residences on Nob Hill for safekeeping; a move that was to prove a mistake. About noon that day the flames begin to approach Old St. Mary’s. For several hours the faithful fought flames, but eventually they ran out of water and could only watch as the venerable church burned. Only the brick walls remained; the stained glass was melted and the marble high altar had turned to dust.

Old St. Mary’s Cathedral in ruins after the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906

The new cathedral, however, had narrowly escaped destruction when the pastor and sexton climbed the tower to extinguish the flames that had broken out in the belfry. As one of the few remaining structures following the Great Earthquake and Fire, St. Mary’s Cathedral became a center of relief in the devastated city, feeding up to 2,000 people each day in the aftermath of the disaster.

Lines of hungry people up to one mile long form in front of St. Mary’s Cathedral after the Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906

It was decided that as the brick exterior of Old St. Mary’s was left largely intact after the earthquake and fire, the church would be rebuilt around the ruins. Thomas J. Welsh was retained as architect of the rebuilding. In 1909 the proto-cathedral was rededicated by Archbishop Riordan. A renovation in 1925 increased its capacity from 700 to 1300.

Interior of Old St. Mary’s after the 1925 remodeling

In 1902 the Chinese Mission was established at Old St. Mary’s, which was then in the middle of Chinatown–the first such outreach in the United States. English was taught to Chinese immigrants in the church basement and native Chinese sisters arrived to provide social services, healthcare, work for the unemployed, immigration assistance, and lunch service for children, all with the dedicated support of the Paulists.

Old St. Mary’s Cathedral in the middle of Chinatown

Both the proto-cathedral and the new cathedral on Van Ness continued to serve the city until September 6, 1962, when the new cathedral was destroyed by fire. The cathedra itself escaped destruction and was moved to Mission Dolores, where it remained until 1979, when it was placed in the chapel of Holy Cross Mausoleum in Colma.

As the “new” cathedral was destroyed, the city of San Francisco began its third effort to build a cathedral. It fell to Archbishop Joseph McGucken to construct what would become perhaps the most significant cathedral built in the United States in the 20th Century, high atop a hill above the intersection of Geary Boulevard and Gough Street in the Western Addition, overlooking the City of St. Francis. As principal architect, McGucken chose Pier Luigi Nervi, the eminent Italian modernist architect whose unique vision vivified the cathedral design, and Boston architect Pietro Belluschi, who worked with local architects Angus McSweeney, Paul A. Ryan and John Michael Lee.

The new Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption was dedicated on May 5, 1971 and includes in its complex a large plaza, high school, faculty residence, rectory, conference center, parish hall, a museum and underground parking. The hyperbolic paraboloid rises to the shape of a cross outlined in stained glass 189 feet high, the equivalent of an 18-story building—about the same height as Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. From the clear glass windows of the cathedral one may look out on a stunning panorama view of the entire city of St. Francis, a city whose symbol is a phoenix, the mythical bird who rose triumphant from the ashes.

On the steps of St. Mary’s Cathedral

One day in the beginning of the 1850 academic year, a scholarly professor at All Hallows College in Dublin welcomed a guest speaker to his class. The visitor was Bishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany, a Spanish Dominican on his way to his new post as bishop of the far-away missionary diocese of Monterey. He talked to the seminarians about the need for priests in California. He must have been persuasive, for the professor himself became one of the hundreds of Irish priests who would journey to that far-off land to minister.

He was Eugene O’Connell, and upon his arrival in San Francisco in 1851, Bishop Alemany put him in charge of the struggling diocesan seminary at Mission Santa Inés. Father O’Connell moved the seminary to Mission Dolores shortly thereafter, where he also served as the pastor of St. Francis Church in San Francisco’s North Beach district. After serving a few years in the missions, O’Connell returned to his quiet life as a scholar in Dublin.

Imagine his surprise six years later when he received a letter from Rome appointing him bishop of the Vicariate of Marysville in California. Alemany had been named the first archbishop of San Francisco, and at the same time Marysville had been selected as the seat of a vicariate under San Francisco. If the 45-year-old O’Connell was able to find a map in Dublin that would show Marysville, he would have discovered it in Yuba County, and his territory covered all of Northern California and half of Nevada — sixteen counties in all.

His vast rural ministry was strenuous, and he approached it with great dedication and a sense of humor. But in 1868, only eight years after his ordination as bishop, he received another letter from Rome which was as puzzling to him as the first was shocking. He had been appointed first bishop of a new diocese covering his area with its episcopal seat in the small town of Grass Valley in Nevada County. Bishop O’Connell was only slightly more acquainted with Grass Valley than we are, and he did not like what he knew. He said it was more a rocky hill than a grassy valley. Furthermore, he felt it was a ridiculous name for a diocese. What was wrong with Marysville? It was, he felt, much more suitable as a diocesan seat and a more appropriate name for a diocese.

St. Patrick Church, Grass Valley, designated as the cathedral

O’Connell made his opinion known to Rome, but to no avail. So with a frontier mentality, he refused to take possession of St. Patrick Church in Grass Valley, designated as his cathedral, and instead established St. Joseph Church in Marysville as his pro-cathedral. The Diocese of Grass Valley, he said, was a “legal fiction.” He signed his correspondence — even to Rome — as “Bishop of Marysville,” where he continued to reside.

St. Joseph Pro-cathedral, Marysville

After nearly 25 years serving the people of his diocese, Bishop O’Connell retired in 1884 and was happy to serve out his remaining days as a simple chaplain to a house of religious women in Los Angeles.

The second bishop of Grass Valley was the witty Patrick Manogue, an Irish immigrant who came to the Mother Lode area to try his luck as a gold miner and later was ordained a priest. After only two years as bishop of Grass Valley, Bishop Manogue achieved what Bishop O’Connell had been unable to do; he had the seat of the diocese moved. Grass Valley became the new Diocese of Sacramento in 1886, and Manogue moved there to become its first bishop. Almost immediately he began work there on the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament.

The Diocese of Grass Valley existed for only 18 years, and is the only California diocese to be relegated to the status of a titular see (first and current holder is Christie Macaluso, auxiliary bishop of Hartford, Conn.). It has become largely a footnote in the story of how diocesan boundaries were frequently revised throughout the history of the Catholic Church in California to better serve the People of God. And Bishop O’Connell would no doubt feel Sacramento is a much more suitable name for the area he ministered to for so long.

Yesterday Francesco and I were in San José to witness the seating of Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves as the third bishop of the Diocese of El Camino Real. The seating of a bishop in the cathedra is a rite that goes back to ancient Christianity and is the official beginning of a bishop’s ministry in a diocese. Watch for Francesco to post some images soon.

Of course, the unusual aspect of this rite was that a woman was seated in the diocesan cathedra. Bishop Gray-Reeves was ordained on November 10, 2007 after she was elected the first woman to head a California Episcopal diocese. This historic event took place in a historic place, the venerable Trinity Cathedral in downtown San José. Trinity Cathedral is the oldest Episcopal cathedral church in California, the oldest Episcopal church in San José and the oldest church building in continuous use in that city. It proudly bears the designation of San José Historic City Landmark number 6.

The election, ordination and seating of Bishop Gray-Reeves is only the latest in a long history of pioneering initiatives by the Episcopal community of San José, which has always adopted innovative approaches to its growth.

In 1854, shortly after his ordination in New York to head the new missionary Diocese of California, California’s first Episcopal bishop William Ingraham Kip arrived at his diocesan seat of San Francisco. One of his first acts was to visit San José, where he conducted the first Episcopal service for a group at the Independent Presbyterian Church (later renamed First Presbyterian Church) on Second Street between St. John and Santa Clara streets. That church would become Trinity’s neighbor until it was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake.

First Presbyterian Church in ruins after the 1906 earthquake

Bishop Kip continued to make the arduous journey from San Francisco to serve the small Episcopal congregation of nine people in San José from time to time, until their first rector, Sylvester S. Etheridge, arrived to celebrate the First Sunday of Advent in 1860. The congregation organized as Trinity Church in 1861, holding services first in the firehouse on North Market Street and then in the City Hall.

Trinity was organized as a “free church,” meaning that all were welcome to attend without having to rent a seat as was the custom of the time. Soon the congregation began pioneering work among the African-American community of San José. An African-American member of Trinity Church who was among the first ordained from Trinity, Rev. Peter Cassey, established St. Philip’s Mission and Trinity members organized a Sunday school there for the children, with Bishop Kip going there for confirmations through 1871.

Among the first members of Trinity’s vestry was James W. Hammond, a retired sea captain skilled in the art of shipbuilding. He was to be a prominent lay leader and served as senior warden for 12 years. To him fell the responsibility of constructing a church building facing St. John Street at Second Street. Accordingly, the new Carpenter Gothic church was constructed by the shipbuilder’s art, and the first service was conducted there on the First Sunday of Advent, 1863. The church was consecrated by Bishop Kip in 1867.

Trinity Church, circa 1865

In 1871, church growth once again cast upon Captain Hammond construction responsibilities. His innovative solution was to cut the church in half, drag one half by horses ninety degrees to face Second Street and add a third arm. This radical architectural surgery resulted in the present church, ready for services by 1876. The church tower was completed in 1887 and a renovation undertaken in 1958.

Trinity Church, circa 1880

Trinity Church, circa 1887

Interior of Trinity Church, 1936

The pioneering spirit has prevailed at Trinity throughout its history, resulting in 10 area Episcopal congregations being formed from Trinity. In 1980, the Diocese of El Camino Real was carved out of the Diocese of California in 1980 to serve the counties of San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey — areas once connected by the historic El Camino Real, the “Royal Road” linking the missions of California. Trinity Church became the diocesan cathedral.

Small by the standards of other cathedrals, Trinity looms large in the heritage of the Episcopal Church in California.

A big tip of the biretta to Trinity’s enthusiastic dean, Very Rev. David Bird, to the cathedral clergy and staff for their unending hospitality, and to Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves for her participation and interest in our project.

Oldest cathedral church: The Cathedral of San Carlos Borromeo, Monterey, was founded as a mission church by Fr. Serra in 1770, and the present structure was completed in 1794. It became the pro-cathedral of the Diocese of Both Californias (then encompassing all of present-day California and Baja California) in 1840. It is the oldest cathedral church building in the United States, being completed three years before St. Augustine Cathedral in St. Augustine, Fla.

Newest cathedral: The Cathedral of Christ the Light, Oakland, will be dedicated in September 2008.

Largest cathedral: The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles, is the 10th largest cathedral in the world and the largest Roman Catholic cathedral in the United States. It covers 65,000 square feet and is 333 feet in length (one foot longer than St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York).

Smallest cathedral: The Cathedral of San Carlos Borromeo, Monterey, is the smallest Roman Catholic cathedral in the continental United States.

First church built as a cathedral: The Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, San Francisco, (Old St. Mary’s) was built in 1854.

First Orthodox cathedral: Holy Trinity Cathedral (Orthodox Church in America), San Francisco, was founded as California’s first permanent Orthodox parish in 1864 and became the cathedral in 1870.

First Orthodox church built as a cathedral: The present Holy Trinity Cathedral (Orthodox Church in America), San Francisco, was constructed in 1909.

Oldest Episcopal cathedral church: Trinity Cathedral, San Jose, was constructed as a parish church in 1863.

First Episcopal church built as a cathedral: The second Grace Church in San Francisco, built in 1862, was unofficially known as “Grace Cathedral.” The new Grace Cathedral was established in 1910 as a successor to this church.

City with the most cathedrals: Los Angeles is home to nine cathedrals.

Today Francesco, Jim and I spent the afternoon at St. Sophia Cathedral in the Pico-Union District of Los Angeles. We are grateful to the cathedral dean, Very Rev. Fr. John Bakas, and our amiable host Jimmy Karatsikis, who regaled us with stories as part of his role of the cathedral’s face of hospitality to the community. Look for Francesco to post some photos soon.

In the Roman Catholic Church, the histories of our parishes often sound sterile and clericalist. They frequently refer only to priests as builders and planners, as though no lay people were involved. Occasionally, the name of a nun or two might be included. I once drafted a parish history for an anniversary booklet that narrated lay involvement, the development of the area over 90 years and how the parish and city grew and changed together. The pastor threw it out and replaced it with a chronological list of pastors, entitled “History of the Parish.” That’s fairly typical.

But I’ve found that histories of Orthodox parishes, by contrast, are often rich and interesting, chronicling the contributions of the many lay people involved in building up the parish and constructing its buildings. The Orthodox are not afraid to give credit to lay people. And few such Orthodox histories are as colorful as that of St. Sophia Cathedral and the pride of place given by that community to the memory of Charles P. Skouras.

Charles P. Skouras

Born in 1889, Charles was one of 10 children of a poor Greek sheepherder. In 1910, he and his brothers George and Spyros arrived in St. Louis. They saved their wages as workers in downtown hotels and by 1914 they were able to open a nickelodeon on Market Street in that city, where the Kiel Opera House is now located. They began to buy other theaters, and by 1924 they owned more than 30. Among their St. Louis theaters was the Ambassador Theater Building (1925-1996), designed by the prominent Chicago theater architects Rapp and Rapp.

The three brothers continued on to become influential in the entertainment business in Los Angeles. In 1932 they took over management of some 500 Fox West Coast theaters. George became president of United Artists Theatres (now Regal Entertainment Group, owners of the Regal, Edwards and United Artists theater chains). Spyros was chairman of Twentieth Century Fox from 1942-1962 and was one of the main forces behind the creation of Century City. Charles went on to become president of National Theaters, which at the time owned 650 theaters across the nation.

The first parish of the Greek Orthodox community of Los Angeles was founded in 1908. Annunciation Church (1912) was built at 12th and San Julian Streets downtown in what is today the Garment District and served the growing community for some 50 years. In 1942, Charles, a member of Annunciation parish, decided that the tiny church was no longer adequate to the needs of the community. He purchased a lot on the corner of Pico Boulevard and Normandie Avenue, then a center of the local Greek community, and for 10 years was tirelessly involved in the construction of St. Sophia Cathedral.

In 1949, architect Albert R. Walker drew up plans for a magnificent church. In his previous partnership with Percy Eisen, Walker had designed the Oviatt Building (1927) and the Fine Arts Building (1925) downtown, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel (1926) in Beverly Hills, the El Cortez Hotel (1927) in San Diego and The Breakers (1925) in Long Beach — as well as a number of theaters for the Skouras brothers. Over the next three years, the architectural firm of Walker, Kalionzes & Klingerman continued to refine the plans and supervised construction. The Athens-educated artist William Chavalas covered the interior with rich paintings, spending six months on the central dome alone, and enormous chandeliers were crafted of Czechoslovakian crystal. Chavalas also designed the stained glass windows depicting the Twelve Apostles.

All the latest technology was included, from the modern sound system to air conditioning and adjustable theatrical lighting. Even the deacon doors on the iconostasis were electric, silently gliding open and closed. Today they’re probably still the only electric deacon doors in any Orthodox church.

When St. Sophia was dedicated in 1952 as the seat of the local Greek Orthodox jurisdiction that then covered 11 Western states (the seat of the current seven-state Greek Orthodox Metropolis was later transferred to Annunciation Cathedral in San Francisco), Charles Skouras was honored by Archbishop Michael on the cathedral steps before the procession of clergy entered the church. And when Skouras died two years later, 2,200 people paid tribute to him in that great church he built as a monument to the Faith of his homeland.

Earthquakes play a major role in the history of California’s cathedrals. In the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906, among the thousands of buildings destroyed were Old St. Mary’s Cathedral (1854), St. Francis Pro-cathedral (1849) and the pro-cathedral predecessor of Grace Cathedral. The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 doomed Oakland’s Cathedral of St. Francis de Sales (1893) and San Francisco’s Greek Orthodox Annunciation Cathedral (1921) while the 1994 Northridge earthquake spelled the end for the Cathedral of St. Vibiana (1876) in Los Angeles and caused the Armenian diocese to abandon St. John Cathedral (1942) in Hollywood.

St. Francis Pro-cathedral and Old St. Mary’s Cathedral in ruins after the 1906 earthquake. Both were later rebuilt.

A statue of St. Emydius held a prominent place in the Cathedral of St. Vibiana. He is traditionally invoked against earthquakes. So what happened? Was Emydius asleep at the switch?

Emydius (also spelled Emidius or Emydigius) was a fourth-century German pagan who accepted Christianity. With a new convert’s zeal, he smashed a pagan idol in a temple in Rome. To save him from the authorities, Pope Marcellinus (or Marcellus I; the accounts are unclear) sent him into hiding as bishop for the region of Ascoli Piceno, where he was an effective missionary, baptizing many people. He was beheaded during the persecution under Diocletian. In 1703, the people of Ascoli Piceno invoked the protection of their first bishop during a violent earthquake, and gave him the credit when their city was left intact. Emydius became a popular saint in Los Angeles and San Francisco, for obvious reasons.

From the life of Emydius we learn something important about prayers of petition. First of all, the communion of saints is not a new pantheon of little gods with magical power over various natural events, or protectors we pray to so our lives may be more comfortable or prosperous. We ask the intercession of the saints in the same way we ask our living friends to pray for us; they pray to God, who alone has the power to intervene in human lives. More importantly, Emydius was a martyr. He believed there were more important things than just surviving or living a life free from hardship.

When faced with the witness of a martyr, we recall especially the petitionary attitude of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane the night he was arrested: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass by me. But if not, your will be done.” This is the proper Christian approach when we ask anything of God: resignation to the fact that we do not always know what is best. We must have a loving trust in God to accept what comes our way, knowing that God will always pull good from evil, triumph from tragedy, power from pain.

St. Mary’s Cathedral (1891; the second of three San Francisco Catholic cathedrals of that name) was spared devastation in the 1906 earthquake and became a relief center feeding 2,000 people a day in the aftermath of the disaster. It was finally destroyed by fire in 1962.

I was living in one of the Park La Brea towers (a large apartment complex in the Miracle Mile District) in 1994 when the Northridge quake hit. My apartment was a mess; furniture and bookshelves toppled, dishes and kitchen utensils covering the floor, hundreds of books strewn about, and plaster rubble all over everything. (My two cats were so traumatized they would not emerge from under the bed for two days.) I went downstairs, and there my neighbors began to gather — people I had never met who lived in my building, some of them I had never even seen.

Of course I knew what would happen, because we Angelenos are no strangers to catastrophe. Just like in the riots two years before, we sat down and talked, exchanged stories, then the food began to show up. Everybody brought whatever they had to eat to the park in front of our building and the food became common property. We brought cars around, turned on the car radios to find out what was happening in the rest of the city. We learned about each other, because we had to. There was no electricity, no water, no television, no Internet. We exchanged advice and experience from previous earthquakes and when it got dark we all brought down to the park whatever candles we had to sit up late into the night talking.

Now there were many people worse off than we were; some even died. The point of the story is that our faith in God doesn’t offer us a way out, but a way through. If we are attentive, we can even draw good from bad things that happen, with the grace of God and the prayers of St. Emydius.