page_title: St. Mary of Victories Church
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: St. Mary of Victories Church / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: Saint Mary of Victories Church (St. Louis, MO) - Benedict XVI's coat of arms
context_page_description: The Church of St. Mary of Victories is a historic Roman Catholic church in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, in the Chouteau's Landing Historic District south of the Gateway Arch. It was established in 1843, and was the second Catholic Church to be built in the city. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
context_section_description: George I. Barnett and Franz Saler, the distinguished architects of St. Mary's Church, designed it in accordance with that of the early 16th-Century Mannerist style. The nave is rectangular and, with the transept, forms a cross with the sanctuary at its head. The choir loft is located on the second tier of the two-tier balcony at the rear of the church. Its ornate wooden-carved organ case and stenciled display pipes are among the oldest in St. Louis.
  Eight tall stained-glass windows with rounded frames grace the nave and the transept, complementing the high arch of the sanctuary. The Egyptian-style doorway to the church is framed by two massive pillars that hold up the heavy wooden cross above the entrance.
  The interior of St. Mary of Victories is also remarkable as the first interior in a St. Louis church whose design was based upon liturgical studies. It was developed and constructed by Max Schneiderhahn, the city's first professional church artist. Himself a German immigrant, Schneiderhahn studied at a German university and two monasteries, bringing the craftsmanship tradition of liturgical art to the St. Louis area. The altars, statuary, steepled baptismal font, communion rail, carvings and frescoes were all conceived and executed by Schneiderhahn, who also painted the Stations of the Cross.
  Within its hallowed walls are also other liturgical art treasures and fixtures donated at later dates by other Roman Catholic religious orders and communities in the metro St. Louis area, particularly those of German origin, including the School Sisters of Notre Dame, the Franciscan Sisters of Mary, the Mill Hill Fathers, and the group promoting the canonization of Blessed Francis X. Seelos, C.SS.R., a Bavarian Redemptorist immigrant priest who worked with mid-19th century German immigrants in St. Louis, Baltimore, and New Orleans.  (His statue, minted by the Vatican Statuary Foundry, stands on a reconstructed side altar made of the communion rail from the old St. Malachy's Church in the Mill Creek Valley (now demolished), once used by the later-dated, now-closed St. Timothy Parish in Affton, MO.  A copy of Bl. Seelos' bronze death mask, one of five in the world, is also on permanent display).
  The Hungarian Roman Catholic faith community also honors the famed Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary with a carved white marble plaque in the sanctuary, noting his visit to this church in the 1970s. The late Cardinal-Archbishop of Budapest-Esztergom participated in a special Mass, seminar and dinner at the visit sponsored by the parish and the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation of the U.S.  Mindszenty is regarded as a great hero to the Hungarian people around the world for his resistance to atheistic Communism and totalitarianism in the 1950s, as well as to those of other nations. The Hungarian Ladies Society of the church has also embroidered most of the decorative altar linens used on its many altars and shrines throughout the liturgical year.
  Two noted historically-recent popes are also commemorated, featuring their stenciled coat of arms on the ornate painted ceiling of Old St. Mary's.
  Pope John Paul II has his blue-and-gold coat of arms over the church crossing (featuring the old papal tiara, or three-tiered crown), while Pope Benedict XVI (formerly Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger), has his papal coat-of-arms displayed over the choir loft featuring the more-updated mitre in place of the tiara.  (As the first German-background church in the Archdiocese, it was as of 2015 the only parish with Pope Benedict XVI's coat-of-arms on public display in the fabric of the church building).
caption: Benedict XVI's coat of arms at it appears in the church
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