A Brief History of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral

Saint Mark’s life began in 1858 as a north Minneapolis mission of Gethsemane Church. After a brief surge of growth, the small congregation dwindled as the immigrants for whom the mission was built were attracted to newer churches more aligned with their ethnic backgrounds. In February of 1863, set on sled runners and pulled by thirty-three yoke of oxen, the mission building was moved to what was to become the center of the new city. The same year Saint Mark’s was incorporated as a parish.

By 1870 the parish had built a new church which was occupied until 1908. The old mission building was towed away again to serve two more Episcopal missions.

During Saint Mark’s first fifty years membership grew rapidly, as did the commercial area around it. Its programs served not only the congregation but also the neighborhood.

But encroaching commerce began to drive many neighborhood members away from town and toward the suburbs of Loring Park and the lakes. Fewer people were left to pay the church’s increasing bills. Parish resources were further depleted in 1880 when 150 members left after a dispute over finances and church politics and founded Saint Paul’s Church.

Saint Mark’s building was in need of major repairs, and its neighborhood, crowded with streetcar traffic, stable smells, and general commotion, had become more dangerous and less appealing.

Building Again

Into this welter of circumstances stepped Bishop Samuel Cook Edsall (also acting rector of Saint Mark’s from 1903 to 1907). He was determined not only to save the floundering parish but to transform it into something it had never imagined becoming, a great new cathedral for the Diocese of Minnesota. His dream became a possibility as downtown property values skyrocketed. Saint Mark’s land was suddenly worth a quarter of a million dollars more than it had been three years before. And when a long-supportive parishioner offered to sell the church a portion of her Loring Park estate at a very generous price, the vision became even clearer.

To design the “new” Saint Mark’s, the Vestry chose parishioner Edwin Hawley Hewitt as architect. Trained in Europe as well as in the United States, he envisioned a neo-Gothic design, airy, light and warm. Positioned on a hilltop overlooking the park and facing the city, Saint Mark’s may not have been a cathedral yet, but it certainly looked like one. New members were quickly drawn to join the congregation, and within five years of its opening in 1910, the church had over 1000 members on the rolls.

Becoming a Cathedral

Saint Mark’s designation as Cathedral came in 1941, on the eve of America’s entry into World War II. There have been many highlights in its history since then, including the convening of the First World Anglican Congress in 1954 and the Conference of North American Cathedral Deans in 1991. The Cathedral was a focal point of the church’s historic 1976 General Convention in Minneapolis, during which women were first officially accepted for ordination to the priesthood and the current Book of Common Prayer was adopted. In less than a year a woman was ordained to the priesthood at Saint Mark’s and became the first woman to serve as a canon at the Cathedral. Since that time there has continually been a woman serving on the clergy staff.

For more on the history of Saint Mark’s Cathedral, see Building Honesty by Mary Sicilia, available in the Cathedral Book Shop and Saint Mark’s Library.