Old St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church

Old St. Mary’s Church in Over-the-Rhine Photo by Laura Laugle

Old St. Mary’s, or as it was once called—St. Marien Kirche, is perhaps the most famous German-American church in Cincinnati. The church was founded in 1841 when Holy Trinity Church could no longer handle the number of German Catholic immigrants. The Greek Revival church was designed by German immigrant Franz Ignatz Erd, built with bricks baked by parish women in their home ovens and completed in 1842. The parish grew quickly and steadily and gave rise to four filial churches—St. John the Baptist, St Paul, St Louis and St. Francis.

The parishioners appointed their church richly with carved woodwork, murals on the walls and ceiling, oil paintings over the altar and stained glass windows reminiscent of the German countryside. Throughout its long history St. Mary’s has garnered a reputation for internationalism. At one time or another, it has held mass in French, Spanish and Hungarian and today it holds weekly masses in English, Latin and German. Old St. Mary’s is currently the oldest standing place of worship in Cincinnati. Many German-American members of the church continue to celebrate their heritage after German mass each Sunday by attending the performance of an an informal “choir” in the basement of the church, and by attending meetings of Händlmaier’s Freunde Cincinnati, also known as “Mustard Club,” in which participants meet on the second Saturday of each month at Mecklenburg Gardens to eat pretzels, bratwurst, sauerkraut and mustard while speaking and singing in German.

Beautiful interactive panoramic photos by Ron Rack of Rack Photography of the interior of the church are available here. (http://rackphoto.com/pp/prayerplaces/old-st-marys/)

Advertisement for Low Mass in German at 11:00 am and Latin mass at 12:30 pm every Sunday. Scanned image courtesy of University of Cincinnati Libraries, Archives and Rare Books Library

Bibliographical Sources:

The Bicentennial Guide to Greater Cincinnati: A Portrait of Two Hundred Years, by Geoffrey J. Giglierano, Deborah A. Overmeyer, with Frederic L. Propas, The Cincinnati Historical Society, 1988, pages 92-93

German American Churches and Religious Institutions in the Greater Cincinnati Area, edited by Don Heinrich Tolzmann, German American Studies Program University of Cincinnati, 1999, pages 501-531