The Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis is a Catholic cathedral in St. Louis, MO. The cathedral is named for St. Louis (otherwise known as King Louis XIV of France and after whom the city is also named) and was designated a “basilica” by Pope John Paul II who visited the church in 1999.
In catholicism, a “basilica” is an honorarium bestowed by the Pope upon only a select few churches and which designation confers some special privileges. Basilicas are further sub-divided into “major” and “minor” basilicas. There are four major basilicas in the world, all of which are in Rome, and 1,810 minor basilicas of which the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis is one. Three physical signs indicate that a church is a lesser basilica:
- the presence of the “conopaeum” — a silk canopy designed with stripes of yellow and red, traditional papal colors (see photo 32 for a detail photo of the conopaeum of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis)
- the presence of the “tintinnabulum” — mounted on a pole and carried processionally at the head of the clergy on special occasions
- the right to display the papal symbol — on banners, on furnishings, and on the seal of the basilica (note the crossed keys on the conopaeum in photo 32)
Construction on the cathedral was begun in 1907 with the superstructure completed in 1914. The interior with its multitude of mosaics covering 83,000 ft² was not completed until 1988. The mosaics contain over 41.5 million individual tessarae (pieces) in over 7,000 colors. The gold tessarae are 24kt gold. The mosaics of Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis comprise the largest collection of mosaics in the world outside of Russia.
The mosaics of the two western side chapels were designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The remainder of the mosaics were designed by August Oetken. Installation of the mosaics was undertaken by dozens of artisans including Hildreth Meiere, Paul and Arno Heuduck, and Emil Frei.
Another interesting fact about the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis is that it has the 98th highest self-supporting dome in the world (44m in diameter and 69m in height).
Even though I was limited by a lack of interior lighting (forcing me to use a slower than desirable shutter speed; use of a tripod seemed disrespectful…), I did manage to get a set of five exposures showing the entire length of the basilica from the apse/altar (on the left), through the crossing (the main central dome where the transept intersects with the nave), to the narthex (just beyond the doorways on the right) which I combined into a 180° panorama:
The statue is “The Angel of Harmony” and is installed just west of the cathedral. Wiktor Szolstalo is the artist and the sculpture was a gift from Adelaide Schlafly in memory of her late husband, Daniel Schlafly, a catholic layman dedicated to racial justice and peace. The main figure in the sculpture, a winged angel in the form of an Africa-American man, has chimes embedded in his wings.
To say the church and its mosaics are spectacular is an understatement…