The Story Behind This Historic Nashville Church Will Send Shivers Up Your Spine
By Meghan Kraft|Published September 05, 2018
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Meghan Kraft
Author
Meghan Kraft loves to travel the world, but she makes her home right here in Nashville, Tennessee. She holds a degree in English, and has worked in the digital marketing realm with companies such as Apartments.com, USA Today and HarperCollins Publishing.
Downtown Nashville is full of high rises and skyscrapers. Often, as you walk through the thick of it all, you find yourself either looking up at the tallest buildings or looking down at the sidewalk to make sure you don’t trip over the tourists. It’s not surprising, then, that one of the most historic buildings in downtown Nashville is often overlooked. That’s because it’s a church! St. Mary of the Seven Sorrows is actually the oldest church in Nashville, and its age brings with it a rather interesting and even eerie set of stories.
The church is actually the oldest standing church of any denomination in Nashville. It was built in 1847, just 10 years after Pope Gregory XVI established Nashville as a diocese of the Catholic Church.
The interior of the church is beautiful and reflects 19th-century simplicity rather than the ornate Catholic churches of Renaissance Europe. If you look closely at the altar, though, you may notice something unusual.
The actual altar itself was designed as a tomb for the church's first bishop, Richard Pius Miles. His body was interred under the altar for 109 years. When he was exhumed during a renovation, they found that his body was perfectly intact. Many Catholics take this as a sign of sainthood and have petitioned to have him canonized by the Church in Rome.
In addition to the potentially holy bishop, the church was also the site of a field hospital during the Civil War. Both Union and Confederate soldiers died in the church, more than 300 in total.
Despite all of the eerie stories involving death that surround the church, its artwork is truly beautiful, and it's worth a visit even for the appreciation of its aesthetic.
St. Mary of the Seven Sorrows is certainly a unique piece of Nashville history, and it's worth visiting, even for those who aren't religious or spiritual. You can find it in downtown Nashville at 330 5th Ave N.
Nashville is full of barbecue, but for the best in the area, you’ll have to venture a ways from downtown to this joint in Gallatin.
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