Saint Thomas the Apostle, Hyde Park

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St. Thomas the Apostle

On my way to campus or the dining hall, or on grocery trips down Kimbark, Saint Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church has always been one of my favorite landmarks on my daily journeys in Hyde Park. A short wall of that distinctive sand-colored brick and creamy decorative tiling enclose the Church’s property.  Further west down 55^th Street, the hustle and bustle of recess from the adjoining school greets the eyes and ears of passersby. The combined school and church span a block of 55^th street, and its hard not to wonder what lies behind the walled property line. After hearing SSI’s founder, Suzanne Morgan, mention that the church was rather groundbreaking for its time, I was determined to investigate on my next summer trip to Hyde Park.

This Friday, I finally crossed the dividing line between street and sanctuary. First I wandered in its serene gardens, noting the sculptures of saints and the holy family opening their arms in welcome, and a garden shrine to the Virgin Mary, where candles flickered in the noontime sun. For the first time since beginning at SSI, and after visits to Buddhist & Hindu sanctuaries, a synagogue, and even protestant churches, it was a noteworthy contrast to see an abundance of statues at St. Thomas, not just behind the altar but abundantly dispersed around the interior and exterior of the church. As a practicing Catholic, I was quite at home, however I wonder how this immediate presence of images might strike a non-Catholic visitor.   

The Church was officially closed at the time of my arrival, but a kind secretary from the church office, enthusiastically opened the sanctuary for my unannounced visit. She turned on all the lights and gave me an informal private tour before allowing me full run of the space. Her tour was a perfect balance between personal memories and church history, full of charming anecdotes of her years as a grade school student, of the stained glass bishop whose eyes were said to follow you about the church, and the “electric razor” light fixtures.

She also explained St. Thomas’s groundbreaking architectural singularity, its self-supporting ceiling. Built in 1924 by the Prairie school architect Barry Byrne, St. Thomas was the first Catholic Church in which a wide nave could be supported without the use of side pillars. I couldn’t help thinking how proud medieval architects would have been to tour this space! The structure was at first detested by the diocese as a breach of tradition. Byrne himself was fired after contesting the installment of the baldacchino. “No pillars!” he declared, but he was finally overruled.

The baldacchino still stands behind the main altar. It is crowned with an open-armed figure (I confess, I am not sure if it is Christ or St. Thomas), which creates 3 silhouettes across the ceiling. Facing this altar, one cannot help recalling Bernini’s colossal baldacchino, the centerpiece of Saint Peter’s in Rome. In fact, the Italian Renaissance echoes once again in St. Thomas’s deco interior through the painted Crucifix suspended from the ceiling just in front of the altar.  Like Giotto’s static wood Crucifix at Santa Maria Novella in Florence and other early Renaissance crucifixes, Christ stands out against a geometric background, but at St. Thomas he is richly dressed and crowned with the halo of the Resurrection.

Saint Thomas the Apostle is a site where Catholic art history converges with American modernism in a humble, approachable way. I like to say that Chicago architecture often arrives at this sort of accessibility.  And through the stories I heard and in the feeling one gets as a visitor, it is evident that Saint Thomas has been well loved over the generations for this very reason.

Homepage: www.stapostlechurch.com

St. Thomas the Apostle, 5472 S. Kimbark Avenue, Chicago, IL 60615

Tel: 773-324-2626

E-mail: staparish@aol.com