St Mary Star of the Sea is one of the most beautiful and historically significant churches in Australia. Originally with seating for over 1200 people, it has been described as the largest parish church in Melbourne, in Victoria, or even in Australia.
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On 30 September 1852, only a few weeks after land allotments in North Melbourne became available, Very Rev Patrick Geoghegan OSF, Melbourne's first Vicar General, secured two acres, on the highest point within the block formed by Victoria, William and Chetwynd streets. A foundation stone was laid two years later, on 14 May 1854, and within six months a modest cruciform stone church was erected. Melbourne's port lay in the church's shadow, and so the church was dedicated to Our Lady, Star of the Sea, patroness of seafarers. Priests from St Francis', Melbourne's proto-cathedral, served the mission.
The Victorian Gold Rush fuelled a population explosion which contributed to a rapidly increasing Catholic congregation. On 28 July 1862, Rev Simon Riordan chaired a public meeting which resolved to erect an entirely new church to serve North and West Melbourne. A scarcity of funds forced an alternative: two additional transepts should be added to the existing building. Construction was delayed, however, by a good nine years. In 1871, a new transept increased the capacity of the church to 500.
Two years later, in 1873, St Mary Star of the Sea became a parish. Rev Henry England, West Melbourne's long-standing locum, was appointed first parish priest. In 1875, Archbishop Goold visited the parish, and informed priest and parishioners that the building was not adequate for divine worship. In response, a second transept was added and the interior renovated.
In 1881, plans for a new and larger church, by prolific architects Tappin, Gilbert and Dennehy, were announced. Archbishop Goold laid the foundation stone on 9 December 1883, but the death of Dean England, and a shortage of funds, halted construction. Rev Patrick Joseph Aylward was appointed parish priest in 1889, and he immediately terminated the project. The proposed building was too small for the rapidly increasing Catholic population.
The foundations of the current church were laid in June 1892. A young and as yet unknown architect, Edgar J. Henderson, tendered plans for a grandiose sandstone cruciform in the French Gothic style. At 175 feet long and 94 feet wide, the proposed church was criticised by Archbishop Carr for being too large, but parishioners embraced the ambitious project. Within a year, however, economic depression had wrought havoc on the project's finance. Remarkably, in the face of devastating poverty, parishioners managed to fund ongoing construction, and church was built in eight years.
Phillip Kennedy took over Henderson's architectural role, and the contrast between the church's exterior and interior can be attributed to his influence. Henderson's rose windows, battered plinths, cylindrical turrets, and soaring groined timber ceiling exemplify the French Gothic Revival. Kennedy's glossy marble and granite pillars, intricate marble fittings, and pink tinted walls, however, betray an Italianate influence.
On 18 February 1900, Cardinal Moran opened and blessed the new church to great fanfare, before an assembly of 1,400. Local Catholic newspaper The Advocate remarked that “The congregation has literally emerged from the worst ecclesiastical building in the colony to enter one of the finest.”[1]
The church was finally completed in 1925. On 12 February, His Excellency Archbishop Cattaneo, Apostolic Delegate, dedicated the new marble high altar and consecrated the completed church.
In its embryonic years, St Mary's was an overwhelming Irish Australian parish. In the years of the Gold Rush, however, a significant number of Chinese Australians also worshipped there. The graves of many of St Mary's early parishioners still lie beneath the Queen Victoria Market a few hundred metres eastward.
Post war immigration to Australia transformed St Mary's congregation. Italian and Maltese Australians embellished popular devotion and worship. In more recent years Lithuanian and Vietnemese Australians have also contributed to the life of the parish.
Daniel Mannix, as coadjutor to Archbishop Carr, resided at St Mary's and served as Parish Priest of West Melbourne from 1913 until 1917. His own coadjutor, Justin Simonds similarly resided there, and served as Parish Priest for 21 years, from 1942 to 1963. Upon Simonds' succession to the See of Melbourne in 1963, Melbourne Auxiliary Bishop Arthur Fox served as Parish Priest of West Melbourne until his appointment to the See of Sale in 1967.
The Depression of the 1890s had restricted the original building budget. Much of the Victorian sandstone and New Zealand limestone used was low-grade, and this severely deteriorated over the next century. The delicate blue and gold stencilling and marble rose colours of the church interior also deteriorated over time, so in the late 1950s, these extraordinary colour schemes were painted over.
Starting in the 1960s, West Melbourne became more and more commercialised and industrialised. The decrease of residents translated into a decrease of parishioners, which in turn greatly restricted funds and prohibited costly maintenance of the church's sandstone exterior and slate roof. For the same financial reasons, St Mary's did not undergo the renovations which occurred in so many Catholic churches in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. The communion rails were preserved, and the forward altar was only a temporary wooden structure.
By the turn of the century, the external fabric of St Mary's was in a very bad state. Its interior was gloomy and in a state of synthetic disrepair. In 2001, Archbishop George Pell entrusted the parish to the priests of Opus Dei, a personal prelature of the Catholic Church.
In 2002 the parish priest, Rev Dr Joseph Martins, launched a $10 million restoration project, which is ongoing. Thomas Hazell AO, an experienced public servant and committed restorationist, headed the project. Dennis Payne, the chief architect, led a specialist team widely recognised for expertise in heritage buildings and places of worship. George Giannis, the chief restorer, set about not only restoring past grandeur, but added details which were envisaged but never realised in the initial construction.
Faithful restoration, by way of example, includes the recreation of gold stencil work in the sanctuary. Some of the stencils relate directly to Eugène Viollet-le-Duc's restorations at the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, whilst others derive from Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin's designs for the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. Giannis' team has also recovered the original brilliance of the magnificent images of St Gabriel and St Michael which overlook the high altar. But he has also painted and fixed a depiction of Christ Pantocrator, which was intended to adorn the arch separating the nave and chancel. Similarly, fibre-glass angels now stand in the niches high in the church ceiling, in place of carved timber angels which were planned in the 1890s, but never commissioned.
To enable Mass to be offered by the priest facing the congregation, construction of a permanent marble Altar coram populum accompanied the restoration project. The altar was designed by Rev Victor Martinez, a professional architect and priest of Opus Dei. It accords with the design, but does not compete with the monumentality, of the magnificent high altar which dominates the sanctuary. Its constituent two tonnes of marble required extra reinforcement to the crypt beneath the sanctuary. The restoration of the interior is largely complete.
Several trade unions and building suppliers very generously donated labour and equipment. Most of the sum raised for the restoration financed the replacement of the decayed sand and limestone of the external walls. Over 250 tonnes of replacement stone was used on the north and east facades. Exterior work on the west and south facades is still outstanding. The global financial crisis has impacted fund-raising, and work has ground to a halt. Scaffolding remains however, and it is hoped that the restoration project can be completed, despite an economic environment similar to the one which slowed, but did not prevent, initial construction.
This site is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register.[2]