Day 28 / 101 - The Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist

On Wednesday, the kids and I toured The Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist with my son's Boy Scout troop.  This historic cathedral was built in 1848 and sits in the middle of downtown Cleveland.  It is the 'Mother Church' for over 800,000 Catholics in the Diocese of Cleveland.

The cathedral is absolutely beautiful and uniquely different.  The photo above (which I admit isn't a great one) displays a painted mural of scenes from the book of Revelation, one of John's most famous books in the Bible.  It was also interesting to hear the history of the cathedral as to why and where it was built.  It gave us more insight on the history of the city of Cleveland.  I think when you try to remove faith from history (any faith) you lose a significant portion of history, since most decisions throughout history have been made on the basis of faith.  What we learned about Cleveland this week, we would not have discovered in a text book.  Yet another reason why I love homeschooling.

The cathedral is also full of relics, including a complete skeleton of St. Christine, which was brought over from Italy in the 1920's.  The 1700-year-old skeleton seemed to be the highlight for the majority of the boys on the tour!