Polish Cathedral Style - Criticism By Other Religious Groups

Criticism By Other Religious Groups

These stylistically exaggerated churches were criticized by many of Chicago's Protestant elites as "ostentatious" in comparison with the "plainer" style in vogue for Protestant houses of worship. Catholic Church authorities such as John Lancaster Spalding, the first Bishop of Peoria, responded by comparing the churches financed by the immigrants to the pyramids of Egypt built by slaves.

The need for identity was evident in the unique architecture of the Polish Cathedral Style. It was often associated with the religious order of the Congregation of the Resurrection, in addition to the architectural stylings of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Both in scale and scope, these edifices were attempts to contradict the marginal status in which the Polish immigrants found themselves. As a stateless people whose culture was systematically attacked in its homeland during the years of partition, they also had a low position on the economic ladder in the turn of the century industrial centers to which they had immigrated. The construction of these churches greatly influenced the development of neighborhoods that surrounded them. World views brought by the Polish immigrants from the Old World, as well as their creative adaptation into the New World, shaped the landscape of the rapidly growing industrial regions to which they came.