Our History: Storied cathedral noted for its architecture
St. Peter in Chains Cathedral stands out not only for its history, but also its architecture. It is rather unique among Roman-Catholic churches because of its Greek style, from the single octagonal spire and Corinthian columns to the Greek-inspired art inside.
It is also one of the city’s oldest churches. To accommodate the flow of immigrants coming to Cincinnati in the 1840s, Bishop Joseph Baptist Purcell ordered a new cathedral to be built at West Eighth and Plum streets.
Construction began in 1841 a few weeks after the cornerstone was laid for Old St. Mary’s Church in Over-the-Rhine. St. Peter’s Cathedral, as it was then known, was dedicated on Nov. 2, 1845, although work on the building would continue for a few more years.
Purcell hired architect Henry Walter, who had won the competition to design the statehouse in Columbus. Walter worked in Greek Revival, which was popular in America at the time because it was both classical and not associated with England.
The colonnade and spire call attention to the church. The main walls are Dayton marble, the basement blue limestone from the Ohio River. The octagonal steeple telescopes to a cross topping 225 feet, the highest point in the city for some time.
The name St. Peter in Chains derives from a painting by 17th-century Spanish artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo of an angel liberating St. Peter from prison. The painting was among a dozen art pieces given as a gift to the first Bishop Edward D. Fenwick, the first bishop of Cincinnati, from Cardinal Fesch, the uncle of Napoleon Bonaparte. (Early descriptions of the church often noted the Murillo painting, but there has been no recent mention of it.)
On Christmas Day, 1853, a mob of Germans protested a visit by Archbishop Gaetano Bedini, ambassador to the pope, burning him in effigy over his role in the recent revolutions in Europe. Signs read: “Down with Bedini!” “Down with the Roman Butcher!” The mob clashed with police outside Archbishop Purcell’s residence behind St. Peter’s Cathedral; several people were shot, and at least one died.
In 1876, reporter Lafcadio Hearn, formerly of The Enquirer, accompanied a steeple climber to the top of St. Peter in Chain’s steeple and wrote a stirring account for the Cincinnati Commercial.
“Then Weston took a small flag and threw it down,” Hearn wrote. “It was awful to watch its descent. It flew and flew in circles, described somersaults, trembled, collapsed, extended, and finally, after many seconds, flattened out on the roof.
“ ‘I want you to stand up on the top of the cross, right on the top,’ exclaimed Weston, commencing to detach the cords which held the reporter to the lightning-rod. His indifference to danger inspired the visitor with sufficient confidence to perform the feat, and extend his arms for an instant 225 feet above terra firma.”
St. Monica Church in Clifton Heights was made the cathedral in 1938, but Archbishop Karl Alter decided to restore St. Peter’s position with a $5 million renovation. Walls were taken down to renovate the interior. The sanctuary was remodeled based on newer worship trends. The cathedral was rededicated on Nov. 3, 1957.
The most striking addition was the gold mosaic of Venetian glass in the apse wall depicting a stylized, youthful Christ figure. Skilled craftsmen were brought in from Germany to install it.
Along the nave walls are distinctive murals of the Stations of the Cross created by Carl Zimmerman, an instructor at Cincinnati Art Academy. The black figures against red brick were inspired by Ancient Greek vases.
St. Peter in Chains is still one of a kind.
Sources: “Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains” booklet, “Sketches and Statistics of Cincinnati in 1851” by Charles Cist, and Enquirer and Commercial archives