Land of the Cross Tipped Churches

  During the middle of the last century, immigrants from Germany flocked to new opportunities in America. Their native land had become too congested and the political arena too stifling for those seeking a better life. What many of these immigrants found as they moved west was more land than they could imagine. The route west from the East Coast entranceways began with a trip across the Appalachian Mountains to the Ohio River. The trip on the Ohio led to Cincinnati, known today as The Queen City and one of the first gateways to the west.
  Another route followed Lake Erie along northern Ohio. It was probably this latter route that Father Francis DeSales Brunner took when he brought the Missionaries of the Society of the Precious Blood from their native Switzerland to meet the spiritual needs of the Ohio settlers. Father Brunner had been a Trappist Monk and Benedictine before becoming a follower of St. Gasper De Bufalo, founder of the Society of the Precious Blood. Father Brunner's association with the Society was to play an important part in present day west central Ohio. Upon the death of Father Brunner's father, his mother founded the Sisters of the Precious Blood in Switzerland.
  When Father Brunner came to America, he brought along priests, brothers, and sisters. Their first settlement was in New Riegel, Ohio, near Tiffin. Father Brunner traveled throughout northwest Ohio, but often fell in disfavor with the settlers. To many, father Brunner's style was harsh and demanding.
  As the settlers spread out from Cincinnati, one of the more obvious routes was northward up the Miami-Erie Canal. Entrepreneurs developed two distinct communities for the German settlers waiting in Cincinnati. One such community developed for the German Catholics was Minster. The other, designed for Protestants, was New Bremen.
  As fate would have it, Father Brunner was asked by Bishop Purcell, the Bishop of the then Diocese of Cincinnati, to come to a town called Minster to help a local parish. A group of men had started a church in St. John, five miles west of Minster. Many of the local churches were served by priests from the area's mother church in Minster. But this parish, as did many parishes of the time, requested a resident priest. Bishop Purcell also sought out Farther Brunner because of his ability to speak German.
  One of the first things Father Brunner did was to purchase a tract of land a half-mile north of the church of St. Johns. There he built a convent and brought the Sisters from New Riegel. Father Brunner named the convent Maria Stein after the Benedictine Abbey in Switzerland. The Sisters began perpetual adoration before the Blessed Sacrament in September 1884.
  Father Brunner's ultimate goal was to have a church, rectory, school, and convent at each tiny hamlet throughout the region. His philosophy was simple: the more people you have praying, the better the world would be. Father Brunner's goals fit well with that of the settlers. The presence of a church in each hamlet echoed the landscape of their native Germany and fostered the self-contained nature of the homeland. There was also a more practical reason. Being deeply devout, the settlers desired participation in daily Mass. Without their own church, however, this would be impossible. The journey to Minster every Sunday was an arduous journey. A daily trip was out of the question. The nineteenth century roads were a quagmire when it rained and snow was even worse.
  Father Brunner never lived to see his dream come true. Although several churches, rectories, schools and convents were built, they weren't as widespread as Father Brunner envisioned. Father Brunner died in 1869, but his legacy was only beginning.
  Shortly after Fr. Brunner's death in 1875, Father John Garner, Vicar General from Milwaukee, entrusted his large collection of relics to the Sisters of the Precious Blood. In 1892, a beautiful new chapel was built to house these relics alongside the convent at Maria Stein. So powerful was the collection that it drew pilgrims from around the world. The surrounding hamlets became known not as St. Johns or St. John's Station as they had previously been called, but the settlement came to be known as Maria Stein.
  In the book, Pilgrims All, a history of St. Augustine Church in Minster, author Rita Hoying points out that when zealous leaders die, the work they began wanes. This was not the case for Father Brunner. There were actually more churches and rectories built after his death, owing to the devotion of those members of the Society of the Precious Blood who followed in his path.
  The present day traveler will find no less than 34 sites attributed to the work of Father Brunner. These include 30 active Roman Catholic parishes. What is even more amazing is that one does not have to travel far to experience all these sites, for they are all within a 22-mile radius of that convent Father Brunner started in 1884. That complex now houses the Shrine of the Holy Relics, the Maria Stein Heritage Museum, and the Pilgrim Gift Shop. This complex was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
  All the structures related to the German-Catholic settlements of the region were placed on the in 1979 and cover four counties - Auglaize, Mercer, Darke and Shelby in west central Ohio. Although the official designation given by the National Park Service is The Cross-Tipped Churches of Ohio, the region has become known as the Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches. Due to the regions historic and cultural significance, the State of Ohio designated a route through the heart of this region as The Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches State Scenic Byway in May of 1999.

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