Peace envelopes visitors when they pass through St. Luke’s hallowed arched doors.
“The church gives you that feeling of being in a holy place that just isn?t there in modern structures,” said senior warden at the church, Andre Liggins. “Visitors marvel at the church’s beauty.”
St. Luke?s Episcopal Church was designed according to the Ecclesiological Society?s standards that stated proper Christian worship could only occur in replicas of their predecessors? churches, which were built in medieval England.
In 1850, St. Luke?s fledgling congregation? mostly Irish and English immigrants and their descendants ? accepted donated land in Franklin Square historic district to build the church. The Baltimore firm Niernsee and Neilson designed the structure in Gothic Revival style.
A marker of Gothic style includes the church?s quatrefoil traceries ? a symmetrical pattern in arches that symbolize the cross.
The church?s high walls, pierced with windows, form an upper story that is characteristic of Gothic style.
Buttresses and a square tower with square indentations around its head give St. Luke?s an imposing shape similar to monumental European castles and cathedrals such as the Cathedral of Notre Dame in France.
St. Luke?s congregation held their first service inside the church in 1853, but construction on the miniature cathedral lasted for 15 more years. The high altar and bell tower were the final touches on the original structure.
Large windows forming pointed arches draw visitors? eyes upward toward the choir loft, where servants sat in the church?s early days.
“When the sun comes through one of the rose windows in the choir loft, it lights up the whole church and something just comes over you,” Johnson said. Rose windows, made of stained glass, depict Bible stories in a rich spectrum of bright colors.
In 1973, the National Register of Historic Places honored St. Luke?s as a Historic Place. The church?s architectural features and enduring connection to past generations of Marylanders earned the church the title.
The church?s physical structure is important to preserve, but it?s what the building says about past Baltimore residents that is most significant, said National Register historian Alexis Abernathy. “We need to understand why [St. Luke?s] looks like it does in order to understand our heritage,” she said. “We can never replace or replicate it.”
IF YOU GO
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
217 North Carey Street, Baltimore
410-523-6272
