Although St Francis Church is Victoria’s oldest Catholic church (built in 1845), St Patrick’s Cathedral is the grandest in scale. This seat of the Archdiocese of Melbourne and minor basilica has a Gothic Revival design with twin spires reaching 344 feet. Since the cathedral was consecrated in 1897 and finished in 1939, it has had the distinction of being Australia’s largest church. The namesake is Saint Patrick, a 5th century Irish bishop commonly called the “Apostle of Ireland.”
