Easter is a significant time of year for Catholics in the Orange region and on Sunday parishioners attended the majestic St Joseph's church at the corner of Hill and Byng Street.
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For the past 153 years the church has also been the location where Catholics have marked some of the most significant moments in their lives including baptisms, weddings and funerals.
However, people in Orange were attending mass before the church was built.
Orange became a Catholic mission centre 160 years ago, one year before the formal establishment of the Catholic Diocese of Bathurst in 1865. Orange is part of that but before 1865, Bathurst was a church district.
The foundation stone for St Joseph's Catholic Church was laid on April 4, 1869 and on April 30, 1871 the original nave section of the church was opened.
The Gothic-style church was designed by Bathurst-based architect Edward Gell. It is built of polychrome brick, where bricks of different colours are used to create decorative patterns or highlights.
The church was blessed at its opening by Archbishop John Bede Polding OSB of Sydney and Bishops of Bathurst, Goulburn and Maitland Dioceses.
A year earlier in 1870, St Joseph was declared the universal patron of the church by Pope Pius IX
St Joseph's is one of several Catholic churches in the region designed by Mr Gell. He also designed St Michael and St John's Cathedral in Bathurst as well as Catholic churches and convents in Mudgee, Cowra and Dubbo.
St Mary of the Cross MacKillop visited the church in Orange in January 1876.
The church's organ was purchased by James Dalton from its builder, George Field of Manchester and was first played by Miss Whipple in March 1885.
Church extended
As the community grew so did the congregation so the church was enlarged and reopened on February 14, 1899.
The new work designed by Sydney architect H E Wardell included the addition of transepts, the sanctuary where the alter stands, aisles and sacristies where priests prepare for service and vestments and other articles of worship are kept.
An article published in the Freeman's Journal in Sydney on February 18, 1899, detailed those works and the community fundraising and donations that made it possible.
According to the article, the old church erected 28 years earlier had a nave 72 feet by 28 feet, or 21.9 metres by 8.5 metres. It also had a sanctuary and sacristy. By 1899 the church measured 135 feet and six inches long and the width of the transepts was 77 feet, or 41 metres by 23 metres.
"People did not foresee the great strides the Orange district would make," the article stated.
A cornerstone ceremony had been held earlier in 1897 the Cardinal-Archbishop Moran who had been visiting Bathurst for an Ecclesiastical Federal Convention made the trip to Orange for the ceremony.
His visit included visits to the schools of the Sisters of Mercy and the Patrician Brothers, a public banquet, trip to Lucknow mines.
The cornerstone was lad on May 16, 1897.
The Cardinal contributed 10 pounds and 10 shillings towards the new work.
Other individual subscriptions were made by James Dalton, 200 pounds; The Honorable Thomas Dalton 150 pounds, The Right Reverend Dr Byrne of Bathurst 200 pounds, the parish priest Father James Ryan 25 pounds; a bequest on behalf of the late P Kenna 25 pounds and many others.
By the time of the reopening there had been 2451 pounds donated and the total cost of the new building was 3579 pounds plus other costs including organ repair brought it up to 4445 pounds.
This total cost of the extension would be close to $808,589.38 today according to the Reserve Bank of Australia's inflation calculator.
The bricks for the new work were made by a contractor in the district and the interior timber used for the construction of the roof was redwood and Oregon pine.
The contractor was J M Pringle of Sydney, the plaster work was carried out by A Padey, gas fitting by the Withers Brothers of Orange.
The alters were made by F Dicken an art wood worker of Sydney, wrought iron work and tabernacle of the high alter was made by James Castle and Sons of Sydney.
According to the Freeman's article, Mr Waddell's design involved removing the eastern end of the old church, a portion of the nave and the whole of the sanctuary and sacristy were demolished.
Replacing them the nave was extended 8.5 metres eastward, with transepts north and south. A new sanctuary was built in the eastern end with the St Joseph's and the Blessed Virgin's chapels on the north and south sides.
James Dalton also donated a marble altar to be set in the south transept.
The windows were to be stained glass.
Modern times
Over time as new people moved to Orange the congregation also changed welcoming people from countries such as Italy in the post-war immigration period and more recently people from India and elsewhere.
In 2020 the iconic stained glass windows were removed from St Joseph's Catholic Church for the first time in 100 years.
Father Greg Bellamy told the Central Western Daily in October 2020 that the rare and valuable windows were made in England before being shipped to Australia had been overdue for restoration work for decades.
He said the work was worse than expected and described the lead between the glass as like "butter".
"It was a big surprise to us to find that they were in worse condition than the older windows in the main body of the church," he said.
The removal of the North-facing stained-glass windows brought restoration progress of the church to stage three.
The historic windows were sent to the workshop of a stained-glass restorer on the NSW South Coast.
The remaining stained glass windows were to be removed in early to mid 2021 and to undergo similar restoration.
More than three years on the windows have not been replaced.
In the October 2020 interview Father Bellamy said there was other conservation management and restoration work they wanted to complete before putting the windows back in.
"There's problems with rising damp, there's problems with the spire, there's problems with leakage in the slate roof," he said.
Early Catholicism in the region
Catholicism had been recognised in the region since before the gold rush.
The first mass was celebrated by pioneer priest Father John Joseph Therry, on November 1 or 2, 1830 when he was called from Sydney to attend the execution of a convict, Ralph Entwistle at Bathurst.
Bathurst had been established as a church district by the time Reverend Fathers Michael O'Reilly and Thomas Slattery arrived from Ireland in July 1838.
They attended 26 stations including Mt Victoria, Mudgee, Wellington, Dubbo and Bathurst. However, there were no churches at that time.
Orange was the last mission centre to form in the district with Hartley/Lithgow recognised as a mission centre as far back as 1842. Others missions included Carcoar in 1847, Sofala 1851, Mudgee 1852 and Wellington in 1856.