Saint Paul Shrine

East 40th and Euclid Avenue

The wedding will be celebrated at St. Paul’s Shrine, with which a monastery of The Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration is associated, as well as the Capuchin Franciscan Friars. The celebrant – Father William Wiethorn, is a Franscican friar at St. Paul’s, a Catholic church.

Origins on Millionaire’s Row

Previously described as the “Montmartre of Cleveland,” the church was originally constructed on Euclid Avenue when it famously served as “Millionaire’s Row”, being the home of Cleveland native John D. Rockefeller, among others, as well as their Victorian mansions. Euclid Avenue was then elm-lined and referred to in Baedeker’s Travel Guides as the “Showplace of America” and a designated must see for European travelers. It was constructed as an Episcopal church to serve this community as well as the parish formerly located at Euclid and Sheriff (E. 4^th) streets. At the time, the tax value of “Millionaire’s Row” was far greater than that of New York City’s 5^th Avenue.

1875 Construction and Description of the Church

In designing the church at such a famous location, architect Gordon W. Lloyd of Detroit was chosen, who was an English-born architect working out of Detroit and architect of many Episcopal churches, as well as Cleveland’s 1833 National City Bank Building. Lloyd chose a Victorian English Country Gothic style for the exterior. The church is composed of Buff Amherst sandstone quarried in Ohio and then widely available through the Cleveland Stone Company. The 120 ft. octogonal tower, recently lit through the generous support of Cleveland Restoration Society’s Sacred Landmarks Assistance Program, is set upon four minaret-like buttresses and a base laid in courses, that is, in a continuous horizontal band of stone of constant height. The exterior is random coursed with a rock faced finish and features carved sandstone details on the columns and elsewhere.

The inside of the church features extensive mahagonay woodwork on the ceiling and behind the altar, while the pews are made of black walnut, all of which is set in the High English Gothic Revival style. A complex of mahogany beams criss-crosses the ceiling above the nave, with supporting gothic arches decorated with gold leaf. The cloister screen is also carved from wood. The church also features a Holtkamp organ, a company still based in Cleveland. The organ Michael has been training on in New York City, like many other organs throughout the United States, was also built by this Cleveland firm.

The flooring in the narthex, nave, and aisles is terrazzo, a material most commonly associated with Venetian flooring – the source of its name, and here consisting largely of pieces of fossiliferious white limestone set into a concrete base and sealed with goat’s milk. Verona marble is used in the geometrical designs within the orange terrazzo. Uniformly white marble angels grace the original, pre-Vatican II altar, which like the side altar is made from beige limestone containing fossil foraminiferans – amoeboid protists with dynamic, cytoplasmic nets – and graced with some stylolites, or non-structural fractures.

The church also features a poly-chromed image of Our Lady of Mercy, containing a piece of the original from the Capuchin church in Altoetting, Germany. The church also features the artwork of Sister Mary Thomas, who is cloistered at St. Paul’s. The stained glass windows were made by Franz Xavier Zettler’s workshop in Munich, which had been appointed The Royal Bavarian Art Institute by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, known as the “madman” who commissioned Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany.

Establishment as a Roman Catholic Church, Monastery, and Shrine

In 1921, Austrian Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration – or “Poor Clares” – were invited by then Bishop Joseph Schrembs of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland to establish a monastery in the city for perpetual, around the clock adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Initially based in University Circle – the area now associated with Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Insitutes of Art and Music, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Orchestra’s Severance Hall. The resulting monastery quickly grew beyond its alocated location. Meanwhile, with the advent of the Great Depression, many wealthy members of Millionaire’s Row were incapable of maintaining their estates and had them converted to other purposes. This time also marked a population shift of the area’s Episcopalians, which made its location less ideal as an Episcopal church, leaving it vacated.

In 1930, Bishop Schrembs acquired the church, erected a new monastery, and rededicated it as The Church of the Conversion of Saint Paul to serve as a shrine in the midst of a bustling city.  St. Paul’s also features a large outreach program for supplying food to the needy in the area.  Recently, the cloister served as the subject of a book, Stalking the Divine.

~written by Melissa and Michael with resources supplied by St. Paul’s, Case Western Reserve

University,Cleveland State University, and the Cleveland Restoration Society.