The Cathedral Church of St. Paul is the cathedral church of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan. In 1824 its congregation formed as the first Episcopal and first Protestant church in the Michigan Territory.

The cathedral reported 489 members in 2018 and 337 members in 2023; no membership statistics were reported nationally in 2024 parochial reports. Plate and pledge income reported for the congregation in 2024 was $282,890. Average Sunday attendance (ASA) in 2024 was 154 persons, down from a reported 217 in 2015.

Designed by architect Ralph Adams Cram and constructed in 1907, this building is located at 4800 Woodward Avenue in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, adjacent to the campus of Wayne State University. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The original site of St. Paul's church was on Woodward Avenue, between Congress and Larned. In 1851 the church moved to the corner of Congress at Shelby.

The funeral service for Henry Ford, the entrepreneur who catalyzed development of the automobile industry in Detroit, was held at Cathedral Church of St. Paul on Thursday, April 10, 1947. Mourners passed by at a rate of 5,000 each hour at the public viewing the day before at Ford's Greenfield Village in Dearborn. At the funeral service, 20,000 people stood outside the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in the rain with 600 inside.

Architecture

The current building, designed by renowned church architect Ralph Adams Cram, dates from 1907. It remains unfinished, the bell tower never having been completed. The church is built of limestone, using medieval construction techniques, with no supporting steel superstructure. American architects of the mid-19th century imported and re-interpreted the English Gothic Revival style, based on the visually lush details of Medieval cathedrals. This was the period of the Oxford Movement in England, which also influenced Episcopal clergy and congregations in the United States to commission revivals of Medieval styles. American architects copied the "Gothic" elements and combined them with simple building plans to create an American architectural style known as "Victorian Gothic." The Fort Street Presbyterian Church, built in 1876 in Detroit, is a premier example of early Victorian Gothic architecture. The cathedral coordinates programming with the Detroit Cultural Center.

See also

  • List of the Episcopal cathedrals of the United States
  • List of cathedrals in the United States

References

Further reading

  • David A. Kalvelage, Cathedrals of the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. (Forward Movement Publications, 1993)
  • Cathedral Church of St. Paul website