Every Sunday, worshipers belonging to the oldest Catholic parish in the United States file into the St. Augustine Cathedral Basilica, where mass has been celebrated in some form or fashion for nearly 450 years. As timeless as this sturdy building may appear to the visitor, however, its history bears witness to many instances of warfare, disaster, and change that have shaped the city of St. Augustine.
St. Augustine was established in 1565 by Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles. He had carried with his expedition four priests who immediately began preparing to minister to the Spaniards who would settle in the new outpost. The map above shows the location of the first parish church at the southeast corner of the old plaza.
In addition to serving as the principal port and administrative center of Spanish Florida, St. Augustine was also the headquarters of the Catholic Church’s effort to minister to the Native Americans living in the surrounding area. Two lines of Franciscan missions extended outward from the town, one heading west as far as Tallahassee, and another stretching into present-day South Georgia as far as St. Catherine’s Island.
The original parish church was burned in 1586 when the English navigator Sir Francis Drake attacked St. Augustine. The citizens rebuilt the church, but it was destroyed again in 1702 during a raid led by colonial governor James Moore of South Carolina. For several decades afterward, mass was celebrated in the chapel of La Soledad Hospital.
Ironically, the arrival of the largely Protestant British breathed new life into the Catholic culture of St. Augustine. When British planter Andrew Turnbull’s workforce of Minorcans, Italians, and Greeks became dissatisfied with their situation, they march northward from New Smyrna Beach to St. Augustine, where many of them stayed. The presence of so many practitioners of the Catholic faith in the city rekindled interest in building a parish church. The return of the Spanish to Florida in the 1780s helped as well. In 1786, the Spanish Crown ordered that a new parish church be built, and construction was underway by 1792.
More than five years went into building the new structure. It was of Spanish design, completed in August 1797, and dedicated during the Feast of the Immaculate Conception the following December. For nine decades, this building served the growing community, and was elevated by the Pope to cathedral status when the Diocese of St. Augustine was established in 1870. A disastrous fire in 1887 nearly destroyed the cathedral, but the coquina and cement walls withstood the blaze. When a new cathedral was built, the architects utilized the old walls and changed very little of the building’s structure, aside from adding a new bell tower and transepts.
The cathedral received its most recent renovation in anticipation of St. Augustine’s 400th anniversary in 1965. As part of the project, the church erected a 204-foot “Beacon of Faith” that is visible from miles away. On December 4, 1976, Pope Paul VI elevated the cathedral to the status of minor basilica. Today the basilica remains an impressive edifice, a stately place for worship, and a popular site for visitors to imbibe the rich history of St. Augustine.
Find more photos of St. Augustine in the Florida Photographic Collection.