Cathedral of the Holy Cross

The Cathedral of the Holy Cross is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and the largest church in New England.

The cathedral was designed by Patrick Keely, an American nineteenth century ecclesiastical architect. The cathedral is built in the Gothic Revival style of variegated Roxbury puddingstone, with gray limestone trim. The planned western spire was never completed. When construction was finished the cathedral rivaled both Old South Church and Trinity Church in grandeur, signalling the emergence of Roman Catholics in what was, at the time of construction, a largely Protestant city and state.

The cathedral is located in the city's South End neighborhood, at 1400 Washington St. Although the South End was initially developed for Boston's emerging Anglo-Saxon Protestant middle class, the neighborhood transitioned to new immigrants, especially Irish, as middle class owners moved to the new Back Bay neighborhood.

The cathedral functions both as a Cathedral, and as a Parish. The Cathedral Parish consists of large English and Hispanic congregations, drawn largely from the local area, and also includes three Archdiocese-wide congregations, the Ge'ez (Ethiopian/Eritrean/Egyptian) Rite Catholics, who moved from close-by Holy Trinity Catholic Church in 1994, the German Apostolate (moved from Holy Trinity in 2008), and the Tridentine Rite (or Extraordinary Form) Catholic community (also moved from Holy Trinity in 2008).