The venerable Metropolitan Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston's South End section is celebrating its sesquicentennial anniversary this month.

The present cathedral on Washington Street is the second for our diocese. The first cathedral was on Franklin Street, and it had been built at the instance of our first bishop, John Cheverus, as he preferred to style himself.

As the diocese outgrew the beloved cathedral parish church, Bishop John Williams opted to move it to the then more fashionable and spacious area of the South End and saw its construction over multiple years, slowed because of the Civil War. This was a bittersweet decision of Bishop Williams as he was baptized in the church on Franklin Street, received Confirmation and First Communion there, as well as attending the fledgling cathedral school before entering the seminary. It was also his first assignment as a newly ordained priest. But he could not ignore the reality of the growth of the church in the Hub and its suburbs, spurred on by the arrival of immigrants from several nations, not least those of his own ancestral home, Ireland. Their numbers accelerated during the Great Famine of the 1840s.

The cathedral was solemnly dedicated on Dec. 9, 1875. It became a metropolitan cathedral when, on Feb. 12, 1875, our third Bishop John J. Williams was named by Blessed Pope Pius IX as the first metropolitan of the newly elevated Metropolitan Archdiocese of Boston. The suffragan sees then were Burlington, Hartford, Portland, Providence, and Springfield. The new province of Boston encompassed all New England.

Various changes were made by Archbishop Williams's successors over the past 150 years, the most recent was the splendid renovation initiated by Cardinal O'Malley and masterminded and directed by the cathedral's present rector, Msgr. Kevin J. O'Leary.

None of the present renovations would have been possible without the generous support of many donors. Some are well-known to us, and some are known only to God and Msgr. O'Leary!

A photographic retrospective of those renovations is presented here.

The cathedral remains a vibrant part of the South End's wider community. Not only do the parishioners welcome one another to Sunday Mass, but also to other activities common to every parish.

And as it has from its beginnings on Franklin Street to its "new" home on Washington Street, it continues to be the mother church for the whole archdiocese and for all of New England.