Mount Calvary Church

Architecture

The building was designed by the architect Robert Cary Long, Jr. in 1844 and the cornerstone was laid on September 10 of that year; the church was consecrated by Bishop Whittingham on Thursday February 19, 1846. In 1885, Long's nephew T. Buckler Ghequier added the chancel. The twelve-foot-high main altar of white marble was designed by American artist John LaFarge. The altar area is set out with encaustic tile from Mintons, and the glass in the Gothic windows contains a depiction of the Good Shepherd produced by Tiffany & Co. A reliquary in the main church houses a bone fragment of Saint Edward the Confessor. The bell, which dates to the nineteenth century, was cast by the McShane Bell Foundry.

The church features an Andover-Flentrop organ of C.B. Fisk Inc., an innovative organ of 1961 that is included in the listing of historic organs of the Organ Historical Society. A former organist at Mount Calvary was the composer Caryl Florio (born William James Robjohn). Bishop William Rollinson Whittingham wrote that “there are larger, more costly, and more splendid churches in Baltimore, but there is none in my judgement so well adapted to make the worshipper feel he must ‘keep his foot’ for he is in the house of God.”

Liturgy

Mount Calvary was founded shortly after the publication in England of the Tracts for the Times, when the Oxford Movement neared its height. It began as a High Church mission parish of St. Paul's Episcopal Church (Baltimore, Maryland) established by the Reverend William Wyatt, and until the current building was available services were held in a room above a bacon store on the corner of Howard and Mulberry Streets. Under a series of pastors, the parish became more in line with Anglo-Catholicism, which emphasized the Catholic heritage of the Episcopal Church rather than its Protestant roots, and this caused friction between a number of pastors and their bishops. In 1868, during the rectorship of Alfred Allen Paul Curtis, Mount Calvary became the first Episcopal Church in the country to offer daily Eucharist.

Bishop William Rollinson Whittingham of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland — and former rector of Mount Calvary — criticized Father Joseph Richey (elsewhere described as “a man of a lovely spirit, holy, self-sacrificing, full of labors.)” for the use of altar lights, wafer bread, elevating the Host, making the sign of the cross, carrying a cross in procession, and praying for the dead. A Board of Inquiry spoke of its "unanimous and emphatic condemnation of the alleged teachings of Rev. Messrs. William Perry and Joseph Richey." In 1879, eleven local Episcopalian ministers published a pamphlet objecting to a mission held at Mount Calvary, led by Father Basil W. Maturin SSJE, that had advocated confession, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the Mass as a sacrifice. A year later, the Rev. Calbraith Perry and the Mount Calvary vestry nominated two candidates, one for holy orders and the other a deacon to receive priesthood, but both were objected to by the Standing Committee of the Diocese, who stated that the testimonials from the Rev. Perry and the vestry—declaring that the candidates had not taught or believed anything contrary to Church teaching—were not sufficient. William Pinkney (bishop), a low church Anglican, declined to engage the Standing Committee on this matter.

The New York Times reported “The advanced ritualism practiced in the services has on various occasions led to spicy discussions between the Standing Committee and the Rectors of Mount Calvary." The same article reported that one of the parish clergymen, Father Calbraith Perry, was admonished and instructed “to cease using incense and not to wear a cope.” In 1894, Mount Calvary was "practically excommunicated" when Bishop William Paret—whose "stinging phillipic fell from the lips"—refused to visit the church to administer the sacraments, for the church—over the bishop's objections—had installed confessionals and continued to use incense. Even so, Richard Meux Benson, co-founder of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, chose to spend Lent in Baltimore in 1895 and lectured on Thursday evenings at Mount Calvary and would visit again, speaking on Palm Sunday on March 29, 1896 and preaching at the parish on Low Sunday, April 17, 1898.

The historic traditional ritual at Mount Calvary made use of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the English Missal. As a community within the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, Mass is celebrated ad orientem and follows the liturgical calendar of the Ordinariate; the feast of title is Holy Cross Day. Solemn Evensong is celebrated once a month, which incorporates Eucharistic adoration and Anglican chant.

Solemn processions occur several times throughout the year, most notably on the feast of Corpus Christi. At such times, a thirty-pound silver processional cross is used (see photo). The cross was a gift to Mount Calvary from Mary Coale Redwood, whose son George was the first Baltimore officer to be killed in the First World War. It was crafted by the Warham Guild and features Christus Triumphans, as well as scenes from the life of Christ and the symbols of the four evangelists.

Ministry

One of the early parishioners was Robert E. Lee who “attended Mount Calvary Episcopal Church regularly” when working on Fort Carroll in 1849 and living at 908 Madison Avenue. Baltimore was a city sharply divided during the American Civil War. The pastor of Mount Calvary Alfred Allen Paul Curtis (who later converted to Catholicism and became the Bishop of Wilmington) wrote that the Union victories were “steps and stages towards eventual ruin” and that they were “matters of humiliation and not of thanksgiving.” Episcopalian Bishop Whittingham reacted by ceasing to be a pew holder at Mount Calvary, saying that he did not wish to be “associated with a body so treasonably ungrateful for Divine Mercy shown in the deliverance of the State from armed rebels and thieves.” In spite of the early support of its rector for the Confederacy, Mount Calvary would become known for its outreach to the African-American community. The parish "made an enviable name for itself by the remarkable work done by its clergy among the poor of the city” and was "renowned for its charitable work." Much of this reputation was due to the work of the curate Father Calbraith Bourn Perry, whose experiences formed the basis for his book Twelve Years Among the Colored People, a Record of the Work of Mount Calvary Chapel of S. Mary the Virgin, Baltimore.. Perry was also the author of A Petition in Behalf of the Colored People In 1900, it was proclaimed that Mount Calvary was “the head centre of very wholesome educational and social work in Baltimore and deserves better and wider appreciation.”.

The parish founded and served three daughter churches for Baltimore’s African-American community. Two of these churches, Saint Mary the Virgin, founded in 1873, and Saint Katherine of Alexandria, founded in 1891, became independent parishes. By 1881, Saint Mary the Virgin had become the largest African-American Episcopalian parish in the country and “became the church of Baltimore’s aristocrats of color.” The chapel featured a sculpture commissioned by the congregation of Mount Calvary, the Adoration of the Magi by African-American artist Edmonia Lewis. In 1872, Mother Harriet Brownlow Byron, co-founder (with the Rev. William Upton Richards) and superior of the All Saints Sisters of the Poor in England, sent Sisters Helen, Serena, and Winifred to Baltimore to establish a community and “to do Mission work in Mount Calvary parish.” In 1987, the Sisters and the parish jointly founded a hospice adjacent to Mount Calvary, the Joseph Richey House, named after the former pastor who, in 2004, was added to the calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, with a feast day of September 23. Dr. Bob’s Place, the children’s hospice, was opened by Joseph Richey House in June 2011.

Rectors

Following reception into the Roman Catholic Church, the title of rector was dispensed with and replaced by that of priest administrator. These have been:

Recent developments

In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI promulgated the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, which enabled Anglican and Episcopal parishes to come into full communion with the Roman Catholic church. Mount Calvary voted in 2010 to separate from the Episcopal Church and to seek to become a community within the ordinariate. Mount Calvary became the first congregation to be received into the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter by its ordinary, Msgr. Jeffrey N. Steenson, on January 22, 2012. Mount Calvary's blazon, commissioned in 2014, is "Party per chevron argent and murrey, in chief a cross Cantuaria gules."