An excerpt from "Stephen Travels"
Top 5 Churches in Manhattan | Stephen Travels
"Tucked into the East Village, Most Holy Redeemer Church traces its parish roots back to 1844 and the church building itself to 1852. Consecrated by Bishop John Neumann (now a saint), the Roman Catholic church had been constructed to tend to the spiritual needs of the exploding German Catholic population in the neighborhood as a parish church. But Most Holy Redeemer looks more like a cathedral. I looked up at this limestone beauty from across narrow East Third Street. A mixture of Baroque and Romanesque styles, the church features a domed tower with four clock faces that remains one of the tallest structures in the area despite being shortened during a renovation in 1913. I spent a few minutes trying to count all the crosses embellishing the façade, from the top of the dome and four corner urns to the carvings in the blind windows to inside ornamental circles and in the scrolls above the entrance doors. The importance of the community was reflected in the grandiosity of the church’s interior. Soaring columns support the arches that separate the nave from the side aisles and then cross over the nave itself. Fantastic stained-glass windows allow streams of colored light to flow in, still unobstructed by lower buildings adjacent to the church on either side. Wonderfully carved Stations of the Cross are grouped in pairs above the marble wainscoting of the two side aisles, separated by statues of saints and Biblical figures standing on pedestals supported by angel brackets. The apse glows with golden murals that curve around the chancel, separated by heavily embellished columns. Above, in the half dome, angels are about to present Jesus with a crown while swinging censers. The front panel of the altar features the Last Supper scene, with Judas emotionally detached from the others while clutching his bag of coins, similarly treated in one of the stained-glass windows. All combined, Most Holy Redeemer is a most spectacular church."
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Byrd Fest
The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny (sthughofcluny.org)
An excerpt:
"...the church looks better than ever before and the parish is sponsoring an ambitious program of musical performances...
Most Holy Redeemer is an endless source of insights into the Catholic devotional life of the past ( and, as is the intention of this parish’s current management, of the future as well)."