St. Aloysius of Gonzaga Church
Encyclopedia
St. Aloysius of Gonzaga Church is a Roman Catholic church in Nashua, New Hampshire
Nashua, New Hampshire
-Climate:-Demographics:As of the census of 2010, there were 86,494 people, 35,044 households, and 21,876 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,719.9 people per square mile . There were 37,168 housing units at an average density of 1,202.8 per square mile...

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The church is part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester
Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester is a diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the region of New England in the United States comprising the entire state of New Hampshire...

, New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

.

History

The parish was founded in 1871 by the French-Canadian population that was growing in the area. It is located at 50 West Hollis Street. The original church of 1873 was built in the American Gothic Revival style with a chancel
Chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...

 terminated by a polygonal apse
Apse
In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...

. The structure was dedicated on June 8, 1873 . St Louis is the oldest remaining Catholic parish in Nashua.

In 1920 the parish completed a renovation and expanded the church to include a transept
Transept
For the periodical go to The Transept.A transept is a transverse section, of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In Christian churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform building in Romanesque and Gothic Christian church architecture...

. The extended chancel terminated with a straight wall punctuated with a perpendicular style stained glass window. In the early morning hours of July 20, 1976, a fire consumed the roof of the old church. The parish decided to raze the building except for one of two steeples. The shorter of the two steeples remains as a memorial to the original structure. The new structure was dedicated in 1979. The interior of the church has many items save from the previous building, including the stained glass windows from 1887, doors, sanctuary seating, sanctuary light and other items. The parish is home to the former parishioner of the now closed St. Stanislaus and St. Francis Xavier churches, also in Nashua.

The former St Francis Xavier Catholic church is now home to St. Mary and Archangel Michael Church Coptic Orthodox Church. St Stanislaus Catholic church
St. Stanislaus Parish, Nashua
St. Stanislaus Parish was a Roman Catholic parish designated for Polish immigrants in Nashua, New Hampshire, United States.The parish was founded 1908. It was one of the Polish-American Roman Catholic parishes in New England in the Diocese of Manchester....

is now part of St Louis parish and is called Corpus Christi Chapel.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK