St Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church
St Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church is a Catholic parish church located at 7340 Cahaba Valley Road (Alabama State Highway 119), south of Lake Purdy in Birmingham's Overton neighborhood. Although its address is on Cahaba Valley Road, the church campus is accessed from Brook Highland Drive.
The parish was established in 1999 and its first mass celebrated by Bishop David Foley in Greystone Elementary School on May 23, 1999. The name was chosen to carry on the legacy of the St Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church established to serve the Italian community in 1905, which closed in 1997.
The new building hosted its first mass on August 10, 2003 and formally dedicated and blessed by Bishop Foley on September 16, 2003 The ceiling of the cruciform church reaches a height of 57 feet high, and the bell tower is 105 feet tall. It was designed to seat 1,020 worshipers.
The stained glass in the roof dormers was brought from the older St Mark's, along with the altar crucifix and statues of Mary and Joseph. The larger stained glass windows in the walls were taken from the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Crookston, Minnesota. A carving on the front of the altar was removed from the Convent of the Little Sisters of the Assumption in Dublin, Ireland.
The church's former parish hall was converted into a Youth Center after a new Parish Center was added next to the church in November 2019. A columbarium garden was also added, outside the south transept.
Pastors
- Patrick Murphy, 1999-2000
- Patrick Cullen, 2000-2006
- Joseph Culotta, 2006-
- Bob Sullivan, 2020-2023
- Justin Ward, 2023-