(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Photo Diary: Cathedral Basilica of St Augustine, FL [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-18 The Cathedral Basilica of St Augustine serves the oldest Catholic Church parish in North America. For those who don't know, I live in a converted campervan and travel around the country, posting photo diaries of places that I visit. I am currently wintering in Florida. The conflict between Spain and France in 16th century Florida was just as much based on religious fervor as it was on imperial and commercial motives. Although Christianity began as a persecuted minority sect within the Roman Empire, by the time of the Emperor Constantine it had become the official state religion. After the fall of Rome, church and state remained intertwined, and the Pope, as head of the Catholic Church, wielded enormous secular political authority alongside all of the various feudal lords and kings. As a result, the Catholic Church became one of the richest and most powerful institutions in the world. This resulted in tension, as conflicts over authority often turned violent, feudal kings often attempted to limit the political voice of the Pope, and many people resented the concentration of economic wealth in the hands of the Church. Things came to a head in October 1517, when a professor of theology named Martin Luther nailed a missive that he titled “99 Theses” to the door of the Catholic Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Luther's criticisms of the church were couched in religious terms, but it was clearly an attack on the political and economic power of the Catholic Church as well as its religious authority. Luther's “Protestant” movement quickly swept across Europe and caused a deep schism in Christianity. On the one side was the Roman Catholic Church, which defended its religious authority through the doctrinal decisions of the Pope and also supported the Divine Right of Kings, which declared that the King was placed in office by God and backed by the Church, and his authority could not be challenged. Catholicism remained the chief religion in France and Spain. On the other side was the Protestant Reformation which, though broken into a number of sects, had a more democratic view of authority in which the individual's reading of the Bible was the ultimate religious authority and the power of the King should be checked and limited by his people. The result was centuries of bitter warfare which, though usually couched in religious terms, tended to be more political and economic in reality. And this spilled over into the New World. When Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492, the Spanish King declared that it was his divine duty as a Catholic to “civilize” the inhabitants and to convert them to the “One True Catholic Faith”, and to “protect” them from the Protestants and their “heresy”. It has therefore been said that Spain was motivated by “God, Gold and Glory”—though their actions showed that it was more a matter of “gold” and “glory” than of “god”. Nevertheless, when the Spanish conquistadors invaded the Aztec and Inca Empires, they took their priests along with them. When Pedro Menéndez de Avilés landed on the coast of Florida in August 1565 (on the Feast Day of St Augustine) and founded the city, he was accompanied by Padre Lopez de Mendoza Grajales. During the Spanish ceremony, Menéndez de Avilés kissed both the Spanish flag and the cross, thereby claiming the area both for the King of Spain and for the Catholic Church. One of the first orders of business for the Spaniards was to build a parish church, to be called the Cathedral of St. Augustine. We do not know exactly where this original building was, since it was constructed of palm logs and thatch and has long since disappeared. (We do know that there was a Catholic Mission set up at the location of the Tolomato Cemetery, which had the aim of converting the local Timucuan Natives to Catholicism—and one of the current church bells in the Cathedral is thought to date from that Mission.) Like the rest of the city, the church was destroyed a number of times over the years during attacks by pirates as well as colonial rivals from France and Britain. The British raider Sir Francis Drake burned most of St Augustine (including the church) in 1586, the new church was destroyed by an accidental fire a few years later, and in 1702 militia troops from the British colony in South Carolina burned the city once more. After this, the Spaniards were slow to rebuild, and there was no permanent church building for almost 100 years. In the 1760s there was a wave of immigration to Florida from Italy and Minorca, and this prompted efforts to rebuild the Cathedral. This was temporarily halted when the British assumed control of Florida in 1763. But in 1797, 14 years after Florida was returned to Spain, a new church was finished, using coquina sandstone, a short distance away from the central Plaza de la Constitucion. Sturdily constructed with walls up to two feet thick, three of the original walls still survive today as part of the existing Cathedral, while some parts have been modified or added over the centuries. (An accidental fire gutted the building in 1887, leading to a remodeling with more fireproof materials.) Originally, the St Augustine Parish was part of the Catholic Diocese overseen by the Bishop in Savannah GA. But by 1870 the population of St Augustine had grown large enough to form a Diocese of its own, and Padre Augustin Verot was named Bishop. In 1976, the Cathedral was granted a Papal Seal, which officially granted it the status of a basilica, and the name was changed accordingly. Although the Cathedral has been modified over the centuries (including some additions that were made to win a Papal Seal), it is still essentially the same as it was in 1797. The front facade, in Spanish Mission style, holds several church bells and a statue of St Augustine of Hippo, for whom the town was named. The interior is decorated with murals and stained-glass windows. Many of these also feature the story of St Augustine. While most Catholic altars feature the Crucificion, the altar here is a carving of Jesus ascending into Heaven. This is another reference to Florida's Catholic history, since the territory was first sighted by the Spaniard Juan Ponce de Leon during the Easter Week Festival of Flowers (“La Florida”). The church holds a number of relics—ceremonial remains of Catholic saints and martyrs—including Saint Justin, Saint Augustine, Saint Monica, and Maximillian Colby. There is also a finger bone said to be that of St Augustine himself. There are guided tours in the Cathedral which highlight the early Catholic history of Florida and St Augustine. In addition, the building is still a functioning Catholic Church, with regular Mass and events like weddings and confirmations. Some photos from a visit. 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