St Peter's Church is a

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

of the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

in the Morningside district of

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, Scotland, within the

Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh The Archdiocese of Saint Andrews & Edinburgh () is an archdiocese of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church in Scotland. It is the metropolitan see of the province of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh, consisting of the additional suffragan sees of A ...

. The

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

, designed by Sir Robert Lorimer, was built from 1906 to 1907, and the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

was extended from 1928 to 1929. It is situated on the corner of Falcon Avenue and Falcon Gardens, to the east of Morningside Road. It is a category A listed building.Edinburgh, Morningside, 77 Falcon Avenue, St Peter's Roman Catholic Church And Presbytery House
from Canmore. Retrieved 20 July 2017

History

Foundation

The church was founded by Canon John Gray and Marc-André Raffalovitch. In 1901, Gray resigned as librarian at the

Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * United ...

to become a priest of the Catholic Church. When he was

curate A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' () of souls of a parish. In this sense, ''curate'' means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy who are as ...

St Patrick's Church, Edinburgh St Patrick's Church is a Roman Catholic Parish church in the Cowgate part of Old Town, Edinburgh, Scotland. It was built from 1771 to 1774, and became a Catholic church in 1856. The facade of the church was designed by Reginald Fairlie in 1929. I ...

, Gray with Raffalovitch as benefactor planned to build St Peter's Church. Raffalovitch was once part of Oscar Wilde's circle of friends.

Construction

Perceiving the need for a new parish to serve Morningside, on 31 March 1905 Archbishop James Smith arranged for Fr Gray to leave his post at St Patrick's and take charge of the new parish of St Peter's. Gray engaged

Robert Lorimer Sir Robert Stodart Lorimer, Order of the British Empire, KBE (4 November 1864 – 13 September 1929) was a prolific Scotland, Scottish architect and furniture designer noted for his sensitive restorations of historic houses and castles, f ...

to design the church in 1905. Lorimer also designed St Andrew's Garrison Church in

Aldershot Aldershot ( ) is a town in the Rushmoor district, Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme north-east corner of the county, south-west of London. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Farnborough/Aldershot built-up are ...

and Knightswood St Margaret's Parish Church. Construction started in 1906 and the church was opened on 25 April 1907. In 1927, Robert Lorimer was knighted and the next year in 1928, work began to extend the

of the church, again under the direction of Lorimer. In 1929, it was completed.

Developments

Following the liturgical reforms of the

Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City for session ...

, much of the church furniture, designed by Lorimer, was removed. The cast-iron

altar rails The altar rail (also known as a communion rail or chancel rail) is a low barrier, sometimes ornate and usually made of stone, wood or metal in some combination, delimiting the chancel or the sanctuary and altar in a church, from the nave and ot ...

, which had fish motifs, were removed. The

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religion, religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, Church (building), churches, and other places of worship. They are use ...

, made of marble, has almost been completely lost.

Parish

The church has one Sunday

Mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

at 11:30 am. Usually, there are Masses or Liturgy of the Word at 9 am from Monday to Friday. From 2017 the parishes in Edinburgh were organised into clusters to better co-ordinate their resources. St Peter's is one of four parishes in Cluster 4 along with St Columba's,

Sacred Heart The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus () is one of the most widely practised and well-known Catholic devotions, wherein the heart of Jesus Christ is viewed as a symbol of "God's boundless and passionate love for mankind". This devotion to Christ is p ...

and St Mark's.

References

External links

St Peter's Parish site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peter, Edinburgh, Saint Listed churches in Edinburgh Roman Catholic churches in Edinburgh Listed Roman Catholic churches in Scotland Category A listed buildings in Edinburgh Roman Catholic churches in Scotland Roman Catholic churches completed in 1929 1905 establishments in Scotland Italianate architecture in Scotland 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United Kingdom Christian organizations established in 1905 Italianate church buildings in the United Kingdom Morningside, Edinburgh