ST MARY OF THE ANGELS WELLINGTON, NZ: THE FIRST 170 YEARS
A FRANCISCAN
FRIAR & THE FIRST CHURCH
There has been a Church on this site
since 1843 when Fr. Jeremiah O’Reily OFM became the first resident priest in
Wellington. In 1850 Bishop Viard and five Marist Fathers arrived in
Wellington. Fr O’Reily continued his work.
The first Church on the site was called
‘The Chapel of the Nativity’. It was expanded several times.
A BIGGER
SECOND CHURCH
The Catholic population of wellington
continued to grow.
In 1874 a larger wooden Church replaced
the original chapel. This Church was named ‘St Mary of the Angels’ after
the mother Church of the Franciscans at Assisi (Santa Maria degli
Angeli).
The following year St Mary of the
Angelswas entrusted to the care of the Society of Mary and Fr O’Reily
retired. Fr P. Kerrigan became the first Marist Parish Priest.
In December 1883 Bishop Redwood SM
granted the parish of St Mary of the Angels in perpetuity to the Marists – a
decision ratified by decree from Rome in January 1885.
On the 28th May 1918 the second church
was destroyed by a fire.
The third church was designed by
architect Frederick de Jersey Clere and opened in 1922.
The Church is of particular interest
architecturally. It was the first church where ferro-concrete was used
for a Gothic church. It is built of reinforced concrete with a brick veneer and
a timber roof supported by concrete portals with steel tie rods. This
technique permitted particularly beautiful slender internal framing.
The Church is a prominent landmark in
Wellington situated as it is near the intersection of major city streets.
When Fr. O’Reily
built his first chapel, he didn’t know that he was building on an earthquake
fault line.
In future posts we will see how the 21st
century St Mary of the Angels has been facing the challenge of possible
earthquakes, and how a team of Marists lives and works in Wellington 170 years
after their Irish Franciscan predecessor laid his first foundations.
Barry Scanell, sm
