St Mary Star of the Sea, West Melbourne
Encyclopedia
History
On 30 September 1852, only a few weeks after land allotments in North Melbourne became available, Very Rev Patrick GeogheganPatrick Geoghegan
Patrick Bonaventure Geoghegan, O.F.M. was a Roman Catholic clergyman who served firstly as Bishop of Adelaide, then briefly as Bishop of Goulburn, Australia....
OSF, Melbourne
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne is a Latin rite metropolitan archdiocese, located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.Erected initially in 1847 as the Diocese of Melbourne, a suffragan diocese of Archdiocese of Sydney, the diocese was elevated in 1874 as an archdiocese of the...
's first Vicar General, secured two acres, on the highest point within the block formed by Victoria, William and Chetwynd streets. A foundation stone was laid two years later, on 14 May 1854, and within six months a modest cruciform stone church was erected. Melbourne's port lay in the church's shadow, and so the church was dedicated to Our Lady, Star of the Sea
Our Lady, Star of the Sea
Our Lady, Star of the Sea is an ancient title for the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ. The words Star of the Sea are a translation of the Latin title Stella Maris, first reliably used with relation to the Virgin Mary in the ninth century...
, patroness of seafarers. Priests from St Francis'
St Francis Catholic Church (Melbourne)
St Francis' Church is the oldest Catholic church in Victoria, Australia. Located on the corner of Lonsdale Street and Elizabeth Street, it is one of only three buildings in central Melbourne which predates the Gold Rush of 1851.- History :...
, Melbourne's proto-cathedral, served the mission.
The Victorian Gold Rush
Victorian gold rush
The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. In 10 years the Australian population nearly tripled.- Overview :During this era Victoria dominated the world's gold output...
fuelled a population explosion which contributed to a rapidly increasing Catholic congregation. On 28 July 1862, Rev Simon Riordan chaired a public meeting which resolved to erect an entirely new church to serve North and West Melbourne. A scarcity of funds forced an alternative: two additional transepts should be added to the existing building. Construction was delayed, however, by a good nine years. In 1871, a new transept increased the capacity of the church to 500.
Two years later, in 1873, St Mary Star of the Sea became a parish. Rev Henry England, West Melbourne's long-standing locum
Locum
Locum, short for the Latin phrase locum tenens , is a person who temporarily fulfills the duties of another. For example, a locum doctor is a doctor who works in the place of the regular doctor when that doctor is absent, or when a hospital/practice is short-staffed...
, was appointed first parish priest. In 1875, Archbishop Goold
James Alipius Goold
James Alipius Goold was an Australian Augustinian friar and the founding Roman Catholic Bishop and Archbishop of Melbourne in Australia.-Early years and background:...
visited the parish, and informed priest and parishioners that the building was not adequate for divine worship. In response, a second transept was added and the interior renovated.
In 1881, plans for a new and larger church, by prolific architects Tappin, Gilbert and Dennehy, were announced. Archbishop Goold laid the foundation stone on 9 December 1883, but the death of Dean England, and a shortage of funds, halted construction. Rev Patrick Joseph Aylward was appointed parish priest in 1889, and he immediately terminated the project. The proposed building was too small for the rapidly increasing Catholic population.
The foundations of the current church were laid in June 1892. A young and as yet unknown architect, Edgar J. Henderson, tendered plans for a grandiose sandstone cruciform in the French Gothic style. At 175 feet long and 94 feet wide, the proposed church was criticised by Archbishop Carr
Thomas Joseph Carr
Thomas Joseph Carr was the second Roman Catholic archbishop of Melbourne, Australia.-Early life:Carr was born near Moylough, Galway, Ireland, and educated at St Jarlath's College, Tuam, and at St Patrick's College, Maynooth. He was ordained on 19 May 1866, was a curate for six years, and was then...
for being too large, but parishioners embraced the ambitious project. Within a year, however, economic depression had wrought havoc on the project's finance. Remarkably, in the face of devastating poverty, parishioners managed to fund ongoing construction, and church was built in eight years.
Phillip Kennedy took over Henderson's architectural role, and the contrast between the church's exterior and interior can be attributed to his influence. Henderson's rose windows, battered plinths, cylindrical turrets, and soaring groined timber ceiling exemplify the French Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
. Kennedy's glossy marble and granite pillars, intricate marble fittings, and pink tinted walls, however, betray an Italianate
Italianate architecture
The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...
influence.
On 18 February 1900, Cardinal Moran opened and blessed the new church to great fanfare, before an assembly of 1,400. Local Catholic newspaper The Advocate remarked that “The congregation has literally emerged from the worst ecclesiastical building in the colony to enter one of the finest.”
The church was finally completed in 1925. On 12 February, His Excellency Archbishop Cattaneo, Apostolic Delegate, dedicated the new marble high altar and consecrated the completed church.
In its embryonic years, St Mary's was an overwhelming Irish Australian
Irish Australian
Irish Australians have played a long and enduring part in Australia's history. Many came to Australia in the eighteenth century as settlers or as convicts, and contributed to Australia's development in many different areas....
parish. In the years of the Gold Rush, however, a significant number of Chinese Australian
Chinese Australian
Chinese Australian is an Australian of Chinese heritage. In the 2006 Australian Census, 669,890 Australian residents identified themselves as having Chinese ancestry, either alone or with another ancestry....
s also worshipped there. The graves of many of St Mary's early parishioners still lie beneath the Queen Victoria Market
Queen Victoria Market
The Queen Victoria Market is a major landmark in Melbourne, Australia, and at around seven hectares is the largest open air market in the Southern Hemisphere. The Market is significant to Melbourne's culture and heritage and has been listed on the Victorian Heritage Register...
a few hundred metres eastward.
Post war immigration to Australia transformed St Mary's congregation. Italian and Maltese Australian
Maltese Australian
Maltese Australians are residents or citizens of Australia who are of Maltese ancestry or Maltese citizens. While most of them emigrated to Australia from Malta, a number emigrated from the United Kingdom where they had settled after having been expelled from Egypt, as holders of British passports,...
s embellished popular devotion and worship. In more recent years Lithuanian and Vietnemese Australians
Vietnamese Australian
A Vietnamese Australian is an Australian either born in Vietnam or is an Australian descendant of the former. Communities of Overseas Vietnamese are referred to as Việt Kiều or người Việt hải ngoại.-History in Australia:...
have also contributed to the life of the parish.
Daniel Mannix
Daniel Mannix
Daniel Mannix was an Irish-born Australian Catholic bishop. Mannix was the Archbishop of Melbourne for 46 years and one of the most influential public figures in 20th century Australia....
, as coadjutor
Coadjutor bishop
A coadjutor bishop is a bishop in the Roman Catholic or Anglican churches who is designated to assist the diocesan bishop in the administration of the diocese, almost as co-bishop of the diocese...
to Archbishop Carr, resided at St Mary's and served as Parish Priest of West Melbourne from 1913 until 1917. His own coadjutor, Justin Simonds
Justin Simonds
Justin Daniel Simonds was an Australian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, serving as the 5th Archbishop of Hobart from 1937 to 1942 and as the 4th Archbishop of Melbourne from 1963 to 1967.-Biography:...
similarly resided there, and served as Parish Priest for 21 years, from 1942 to 1963. Upon Simonds' succession to the See of Melbourne in 1963, Melbourne Auxiliary Bishop Arthur Fox served as Parish Priest of West Melbourne until his appointment to the See of Sale
Roman Catholic Diocese of Sale
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Sale is a suffragan Latin Rite diocese of Archdiocese of Melbourne, established in 1887, covering the south east of Victoria, Australia.-History:The Diocese of Sale was erected by Pope Leo XIII on 26 April 1887...
in 1967.
Restoration
The Depression of the 1890s had restricted the original building budget. Much of the Victorian sandstone and New Zealand limestone used was low-grade, and this severely deteriorated over the next century. The delicate blue and gold stencilling and marble rose colours of the church interior also deteriorated over time, so in the late 1950s, these extraordinary colour schemes were painted over.Starting in the 1960s, West Melbourne became more and more commercialised and industrialised. The decrease of residents translated into a decrease of parishioners, which in turn greatly restricted funds and prohibited costly maintenance of the church's sandstone exterior and slate roof. For the same financial reasons, St Mary's did not undergo the renovations which occurred in so many Catholic churches in the wake of the Second Vatican Council
Second Vatican Council
The Second Vatican Council addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. It was the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It opened under Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed...
. The communion rails were preserved, and the forward altar was only a temporary wooden structure.
By the turn of the century, the external fabric of St Mary's was in a very bad state. Its interior was gloomy and in a state of synthetic disrepair. In 2001, Archbishop George Pell
George Pell
George Pell AC is an Australian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the eighth and current Archbishop of Sydney, serving since 2001. He previously served as auxiliary bishop and archbishop of the Archdiocese of Melbourne...
entrusted the parish to the priests of Opus Dei
Opus Dei
Opus Dei, formally known as The Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei , is an organization of the Catholic Church that teaches that everyone is called to holiness and that ordinary life is a path to sanctity. The majority of its membership are lay people, with secular priests under the...
, a personal prelature
Personal prelature
Personal prelature is an institutional structure of the Roman Catholic Church which comprises a prelate, clergy and possibly laity who undertake specific pastoral activities. Personal prelatures, similar to dioceses and military ordinariates, are under the governance of the Vatican's Congregation...
of the Catholic Church.
In 2002 the parish priest, Rev Dr Joseph Martins, launched a $10 million restoration project, which is ongoing. Thomas Hazell AO, an experienced public servant and committed restorationist, headed the project. Dennis Payne, the chief architect, led a specialist team widely recognised for expertise in heritage buildings and places of worship. George Giannis, the chief restorer, set about not only restoring past grandeur, but added details which were envisaged but never realised in the initial construction.
Faithful restoration, by way of example, includes the recreation of gold stencil work in the sanctuary. Some of the stencils relate directly to Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc was a French architect and theorist, famous for his interpretive "restorations" of medieval buildings. Born in Paris, he was a major Gothic Revival architect.-Early years:...
's restorations at the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris , also known as Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra of...
, whilst others derive from Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin's designs for the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. Giannis' team has also recovered the original brilliance of the magnificent images of St Gabriel and St Michael which overlook the high altar. But he has also painted and fixed a depiction of Christ Pantocrator
Christ Pantocrator
In Christian iconography, Christ Pantokrator refers to a specific depiction of Christ. Pantocrator or Pantokrator is a translation of one of many Names of God in Judaism...
, which was intended to adorn the arch separating the nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
and 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...
. Similarly, fibre-glass angels now stand in the niches high in the church ceiling, in place of carved timber angels which were planned in the 1890s, but never commissioned.
To enable Mass to be offered by the priest facing the congregation, construction of a permanent marble Altar coram populum accompanied the restoration project. The altar was designed by Rev Victor Martinez, a professional architect and priest of Opus Dei. It accords with the design, but does not compete with the monumentality, of the magnificent high altar which dominates the sanctuary. Its constituent two tonnes of marble required extra reinforcement to the crypt beneath the sanctuary. The restoration of the interior is largely complete.
Several trade unions and building suppliers very generously donated labour and equipment. Most of the sum raised for the restoration financed the replacement of the decayed sand and limestone of the external walls. Over 250 tonnes of replacement stone was used on the north and east facades.
Exterior work on the west and south facades is still outstanding. The global financial crisis has impacted fund-raising, and work has ground to a halt. Scaffolding remains however, and it is hoped that the restoration project can be completed, despite an economic environment similar to the one which slowed, but did not prevent, initial construction.
This site is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register
Victorian Heritage Register
The Victorian Heritage Register lists places of cultural heritage significance to the State of Victoria, Australia. It has statutory weight under the Heritage Act 1995 which establishes Heritage Victoria as the permit authority...
.