St. Elizabeth's Church, Romanesque church building in the Auraria neighborhood, Denver, United States
St. Elizabeth's Church is a Romanesque-style church completed in 1898, built of rusticated rhyolite quarried near Castle Rock, Colorado. Its spire rises 162 feet (49 m) above the surrounding neighborhood. The interior was renovated in 1968, when the current stained-glass windows were installed.
In 1870 Denver's German Catholics petitioned Bishop Joseph Projectus Machebeuf for a German-speaking priest, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary Parish was established in 1878 as the city's second Catholic parish. Franciscans Francis Koch and Venatius Eder arrived in 1887 and built a brick school in 1890 and a rectory in 1891. The present church, completed in 1898, was consecrated by Bishop Nicholas Chrysostom Matz on June 8, 1902, after the parish became the first in the Diocese of Denver to retire its debt.
The parish was founded in 1878 as Denver's German national parish, and German was the language of worship for its first generations. From 2003 to 2016 the church housed both Roman Catholic and Russian Byzantine Catholic communities, serving two liturgical traditions under one roof. It is now a mission of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.
The church stands on the Auraria Higher Education Center campus, southwest of downtown Denver, not in the central business district. It is reached on foot from the campus and nearby Auraria West station; the 162-foot spire makes it easy to find from the surrounding streets.
The church is built of rusticated rhyolite quarried near Castle Rock, Colorado, and its spire rises 162 feet (49 m) above the neighbourhood. The friary next door, added in 1936 with funding from the May Bonfils Trust, was designed by architect Jacques Benedict and holds a colonnade, Stations of the Cross and a shrine to Saint Francis of Assisi.
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