St. Andrew's Roman Catholic Church

St. Andrew's Roman Catholic Church is a historic Roman Catholic church and rectory in Roanoke, Virginia, United States. It was built in 1900-1902, and is a buff brick church on a stone foundation in the High Victorian Gothic style. It has a cruciform plan and features two tall Gothic towers which flank the main entrance and are square in plan. On each tower are two small lancet windows, two large pointed-arch stained-glass tracery windows, and sets of double pointed-arch openings at the belfry. Also on the property is a rectory built in 1887. The church replaced an earlier small brick church built in 1883.It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.The church has had two major renovations since its completion. The first renovations took place after the Second Vatican Council authorized certain liturgical alterations. A freestanding altar was installed so that Mass could be celebrated versus populum, the priest facing the people. The ornate high altar was left in place and intact.Later, the original freestanding altar was replaced with a more ornate, marble one that remains in use to this day. At the same time the interior was radically modified to remove two side altars, a long altar rail, and a select portion of iconography. The lighting of the church was also renovated to allow a brighter hue.