A&O Meetup: Old St. Mary's | Cincinnati, OH

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Ernest Disney-Britton

OHIO---Cincinnati, Ohio may not have another church as architecturally stylistic and eclectic as St. Mary's Church (know known as Old St. Mary's Church) in Over the Rhine. The exterior shows signs of the 19th century's growing interest in Romanesque and Gothic but it is the stunningly beautiful sanctuary that attracts visitor's mixing Greek Revival with Baroque styles. The interior is richly embellished both with works of art and objects of devotion. Especially noteworthy are three oil paintings of the Blessed Virgin Mary above the main altar. Fifteen feet high, the paintings are changed at appropriate seasons of the year, being hoisted into place by a system of pulleys. Visible under the high altar are the bones of a woman martyr discovered in 1844 in the Roman catacombs. On July the 3rd, 1842, the church was dedicated and at the time it was the largest church thus far erected in the Mississippi Valley, being 142 feet long, 66 feet wide, the tower reaching the height of 170 feet.