Monday, January 3, 2011

Holy Trinity Avon 1833>>?

People move, people die, people are born. Buildings come and go, in the US more than some other places; it is a disposable society. Parishes are to be perpetual. Holy Trinity, Avon, is older than the diocese it is in. It began with bavarian immigrants in 1833. They celebrated their first Mass in 1841 with a visiting priest from Cleveland's only parish.

Driving westward (from Cleveland) on Detroit Road, passing from one suburb to another, passing newish developments and buildings, and then a neo-gothic church of local brown gray sandstone, some blackened by age and soot. It can be nothing else. Perhaps, it is not Plato's church [well of course not, it is not greek, but if he was from south Germany. This digression is a reference to the idea of universals, and the existence of prototypical perfect exemplars.] Holy Trinity, Avon is immediately recognisable as 'church' inside and out. The high altar is carved wood with a rood group and crocketted side spires, as fine as any in Cleveland [considering its size].

Holy Trinity is a common name for a catholic church. Its patronage, a triune God, is a chief doctrine of christianity. Shakespeare is buried in Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon. There had been a church there since early in the 8th century, it was confiscated under the anglican takeover, though William remained in heart, and in private a catholic.
supra: old glass, exterior window

These german farmers began their parish and it grew. In 1902 this edifice came [an earlier one burned]. A whirlwind came in 1924 and struck the building. The new stained glass was not installed until the post war boom. Avon is now a suburb with beyond average wealth. That little community is now a large parish, they could not have known that when Andy Jackson was president, and the bishop was in Cincinnati. A resident priest first came the same month Gettysburg was the current event [July 1863].

Thirty years the parish existed and grew without a priest. Farm land is now prestigious suburban sprawl. The social conditions of the next generation, the next century, cannot be known now. Why should Holy Trinity, Avon not survive then?

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