The largest city in Massachusetts, Boston is the unofficial capital of the region called New England. It was founded in 1630 by Puritan colonists. The Irish, Italians, and Spaniards who later arrived in America brought the Catholic faith with them. In 1875, the largest Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Cross appeared in Boston.
The Catholic community has become one of the largest in Boston. The desire to build a gigantic Catholic church that would accommodate thousands of believers was expressed back in 1860 by the Bishop of Boston, a native of Ireland, John Fitzpatrick. He understood that it was possible to introduce new believers to Catholicism by creating a trustworthy prayer house, where it was possible to revive Catholic rituals in all its glory, to hold solemn divine services with singing and playing the organ.
We started raising funds, preparing a project, looking for a place. But the outbreak of the Civil War in the United States between the North and South for the abolition of slavery, which lasted from 1861 to 1865, prevented the plan from being realized.
Fitzpatrick's successor, also Irish, Bishop John Williams, recruited architect Patrick Keely in 1866 to design a pseudo-Gothic Catholic cathedral. Construction of the temple in the southern part of the city began in the same year. There were no particular complications during the construction of the cathedral, and by 1875 it was almost completed. It remained only to build on a high spire with a gilded cross, which would have adorned the entire structure, but for some reason it has not been completed to this day.
In 1875, Bishop Williams received a new dignity - he became the first archbishop in Boston. He could now hold mass in the newly opened Catholic cathedral, which received the status of a cathedral, in which the largest organ on the entire coast sounded. The temple has 1,700 seating places for the parishioners.
The new Cathedral of the Holy Cross has become one of the largest places of worship not only in the city, but throughout New England.
