St. Mary Church (Bridgeport, Connecticut)

St. Mary Parish is a Roman Catholic church in Bridgeport, Connecticut, part of the Diocese of Bridgeport.HistoryBefore April 1857 the East of Bridgeport Catholics were attended by the priests of St. James Church, first parish in the city and predecessor of St. Augustine’s. St. James was located at Washington Avenue and Arch Street and had been dedicated July 24, 1843 – 13 years after a missionary priest had first celebrated Mass in Bridgeport and several months before the Diocese of Hartford was created. At this time St. James had parish boundary lines including an area greater than today's Diocese of Bridgeport.Rev. Thomas J. Synott, third priest to serve St. James and second pastor, in 1854 decided to build the first St. Mary Church on Crescent and Church Streets where St. Cyril’s now stands. It was a white wooden frame church. Their first parishioners were from Ireland. In April 1857 St. Mary receives official status of parish and is assigned its first pastor, Rev. Peter A. Smith, who builds a rectory and serves the community for five years. The next eleven years the young parish was under the direction of Revs. Francis J. Lenihan (1862), Richard O’Gorman, Thomas Drea (1867).In 1869 the first church of Bridgeport, St. James, (established in 1842, one year before the establishment of the Dioceses of Hartford) is replaced with San Augustine Church. On July 6, 1873, Rev. John F. Rogers takes Rev. Drea place as pastor for the next 29 years. During his tenure as spiritual director, the parish grew into one of the most important parishes of the Hartford Diocese. In June 1874 Rev. Rogers began to build the red brick, Romanesque-style church. On May 16, 1875, the first cornerstone is placed and on October 14, 1877, Bishop Thomas Galberry, 4th Bishop of the Dioceses of Hartford, dedicates the new St. Mary.