Discover how Jefferson City’s first church grew within the capital city.

Missouri’s capital city and St. Peter Catholic Church are like vines that grow together in the same vineyard, inseparably intertwined to the roots.

Jesuit Father Felix Verreydt celebrated the city’s first recorded church mass in 1831, in a house that now stands across from the Governor’s Mansion. Jesuit Father Ferdinand Helias witnessed the first recorded Catholic baptism in the city on May 26, 1838. The next day, he received “the heartiest welcome” from roughly 150 Irish and German Catholics when he presided at mass. Thereafter, Fr. Helias visited Jefferson City on the second Sunday of each month.

From its beginning, St. Peter developed a strong relationship with the capitol as some of its original parishioners helped build the first Missouri State Capitol building. When a larger Capitol was built in 1840, the Missouri House of Representatives came one vote short of selling the old Capitol building to the Archbishop of St. Louis for use as Jefferson City’s second Catholic church.

Due to the church’s growth, Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick of St. Louis appointed Father James Murphy to be the first resident pastor of the parish in 1846; soon after, it was renamed in honor of St. Peter. In 1854, a new church was built and a school opened in the former church building. School Sisters of Notre Dame arrived from St. Louis in 1867 to teach at the school, and their successors continued to serve the parish for over 140 years until 2012.

By 1883, the third and present St. Peter Church was built on the site of the second church across from the State Capitol, and the first mass within the new building was celebrated on February 2 that same year. Monsignor Otto Hoog was the pastor at the time. A new school building was later completed in 1868 and then replaced in 1890 by a larger building, part of which remains in use.

Just 11 years later, the church again strengthened its relationship with the capitol when the school served as a temporary capitol after the second State Capitol building burned down. For the remainder of the 46th General Assembly, the House of Representatives held sessions in St. Peter’s Hall, and committee meetings were held in classrooms. Msgr. Joseph Selinger, the pastor at the time of the fi re, stood on the porch of the current St. Peter Rectory, blessing the firefighters and their equipment as they headed in to carry out their work.

In 1917, the high school opened; it was expanded in 1931 and 1937 and renamed Helias Interparish High School in 1954. The School Sisters of Notre Dame taught the girls, and De LaSalle Christian Brothers taught the boys.

As Catholicism grew within the capital city, St. Peter became the mother church of Immaculate Conception and Cathedral of St. Joseph parishes and of St. Andrew Parish in Holts Summit, Missouri. On November 27,1956, Pope Pius XII established the Diocese of Jefferson City. The new diocese would eventually comprise of 38 counties in Central and Northeastern Missouri. St. Peter Church was selected to serve as the cathedral, a designation it carried for 12 years. The cathedral traditionally is the bishop’s parish church in a diocese.

Shortly after a major church renovation in 2005, an arsonist set a fire on the altar. A parish employee noticed the smoke, and firefighters acted quickly. A subsequent renovation was carried out in 2021, and the church was officially named the St. Peter Proto-Cathedral in 2023 (proto means first or original in Latin).

Today, parish membership includes 1,330 households, with 500 students in its schools. In keeping with state statute, the governor takes the Oath of Office at a few minutes after noon, following the ringing of the Angelus bells at St. Peter’s Church tower. The late Gov. Joseph Teasdale, the state’s first Catholic governor, was a St. Peter parishioner from 1977-1981. Current Gov. Michael Kehoe, who’s also Catholic, has worshiped in St. Peter Church many times while holding various state offices. The church is also still very much active in upholding its goal: for everyone to become members of the Communion of Saints and spend the rest of eternity with God.