St. Francis
de Sales Church

2653 Ohio Avenue (at Gravois)
St. Louis, Missouri 63118  
www.institute-christ-king.org

St. Frances de Sales Church is known as “The Cathedral of the South Side” for good reason; its 300-foot spire is the tallest in the city. Organized in 1867, the parish was the third German Catholic parish on the south side, an offshoot of Sts. Peter and Paul in Soulard, and first worshipped in a brick building on the site of the present rectory. Ironically the parish was named for a French-speaking bishop of Geneva, who co-founded the Order of the Visitation in 1610. The new building was planned in 1894 to grand scale, with designs obtained from Engelbert Seibertz, a prominent church architect in Berlin, Germany. Construction began in 1895, but the tornado of 1896 destroyed the old church and brought work on the new one to a standstill; only the basement was finished. The tornado severely damaged the homes and businesses of many parishioners, so that they were unable to make a new start for more than a decade.

Nevertheless the parishioners were determined, as the parish priest wrote to Cardinal Glennon in 1907: “It is not my ambition to have the highest steeple and the biggest church, etc., but I have to reckon with the people in the parish.” A new architect, Victor Klutho, substituted a gray brick for the originally intended stone but retained the strongly German flavor in the design of the present church, which was completed in 1908 at a cost of $300,000. It is a German “hall church,” with side aisles almost as tall as the 70-foot-high nave.

The altar end of the church has two subsidiary apses to the sides of the main one; they are dedicated to St. Joseph and the Blessed Mother. Beautifully carved wood is used in profusion, in keeping with a German tradition going back to the middle ages. Color plays an important part, with painted sculptures and architectural features, the rose shade of the ceiling decorations particularly characteristic of Germany. The monumental reredos rises 52 feet and includes 60 pinnacles. The pulpit includes statues of the four Evangelists. Another sculptural feature that repays close inspection is the communion rail. Sculpted corbels under the choir loft depict, in caricature one hopes, the artisans who worked on the church. The hall church plan permits exceptionally tall windows, and they are filled with outstanding stained glass made by Emil Frei, Senior, then recently arrived from Munich. Figures of German saints include St. Henry, St. Boniface, St. Elizabeth, and the Blessed Herman Joseph Steinfeld. Much of the window tracery and other ornament was produced by the Winkle Terra Cotta Company of St. Louis. The frescoes in the transepts were done by Fridolin Fuchs in 1916. The mosaics seen over the exterior entrance and in the Byzantine-style baptistry apse probably date to about 1920.

Today St. Francis de Sales ministers to a parish of wide economic diversity, including Hispanics, Eastern Europeans, and Southeast Asians. The church is active in community revitalization efforts and has set up a special fund for the preservation of its landmark building. December 23, 2001 marked the Chamber Chorus’ first performance at St. Francis de Sales.

Notes by Esley Hamilton and Philip Barnes
Photo by Roger Hill