NZ Visual Diary - entry 120
Parnell Road - home to two important churches
Two important churches in New Zealand’s religious history are located on Parnell Road. They are also architecturally distinctive church buildings.
St John the Baptist Church is the oldest surviving Catholic Church in Auckland and one of the oldest churches in New Zealand. It was consecrated in 1861. The original church of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Auckland Central, the seat of the Catholic Diocese of Auckland, predates St John’s by twenty years, but that founding building of the Catholic Diocese has been replaced several times, including by the current structure built in 1907.
St Mary’s Church was the former cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Auckland. The current structure, which is recognised as one of the most impressive wooden Gothic style structures in the world, was completed in 1886. It replaced the original church building, which was built in 1860. The Holy Trinity Church, which sits aside St Mary’s, was consecrated as the cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Auckland in 1973.