[1]The Calvary congregation grew and, in 1861, decided to purchase a lot a few blocks east of its first site at the corner of Penn Avenue and Station Street.

On this property Calvary built a Gothic revival church that featured a ribbed-vaulted ceiling and steeply pitched Victorian roof.

Calvary can be credited with the creation of several missions in the Pittsburgh region, sparked largely by Boyd Vincent, that eventually became established Episcopal parishes in Wilkinsburg (St. Stephen's), Oakland (Ascension), Mt.

[1] At the turn of the twentieth century, East Liberty's demographics began to change and the challenges of neighborhood decline caused Calvary congregation to consider relocation.

In December 1904, the Calvary Vestry met to consider the sale of the Penn Avenue church and the construction of a new, larger structure.

In example, the "low church" characteristic is evidenced in that Morning Prayer was the most common form of Sunday worship, while the Eucharist was only celebrated once a month.

The spire and arches, according to Cram, "point us upward," the cross "everywhere crowns the whole," and "the ornament everywhere visible on buttress and balustrade, on door and windows and wall, is the shield as a symbol of the power of faith.

"[1]On December 19, 1907, Calvary held its first service in the imposing Gothic structure on Shady Avenue, which, at that time, consisted only of the church connected to a three-story parish house.

The total cost was $400,000, but within seven years Calvary was free of debt, due in part to the generous assistance of industrialist, Henry Clay Frick.

[1] Despite Cram's grand Gothic architecture, Calvary parish continued worship for many years in a "low church" fashion.

Eventually, however, the grandeur and size of the new building led to a greater use of pageantry, more formal vestments, and full processions with choir, clergy, and acolytes.

This greatly impacted Calvary's influence within the Pittsburgh Diocese and upon its ability to advocate in the national Episcopal Church.

Beryl Choi, one of the first ordained women in the Church's history, became the first woman to hold a continuing parish appointment as a priest in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

[2] Cram believed that "the foundation of good architecture and structural integrity" was made visible in his work at Calvary Church.

The Indiana limestone exterior presents a refined austerity, assisting in the way the building's form points toward the heavens at ever-higher levels.

The viewer's eye is eased upward by the repeating, slender, and triple lancets as well as the play of light and shadow across the church's surface.

"[4]Cram greatly disliked the stained glass of his contemporaries, John LaFarge and Louis Comfort Tiffany, and wanted his churches to reflect earlier medieval aesthetics.

Having difficulty finding craftsmen to recreate such techniques in the United States, Cram often turned to English artisans for stained glass.

Kirchmayer, born in Obergammergau, Bavaria, was the first woodcarver Cram met in America who knew how to create the medieval style carvings he needed for his churches.

In the Lady Chapel, two reconstructions of the original electric lamps designed by Cram's partner Bertram Goodhue were hung in the space.

The 1975 addition created the large multi-purpose parish hall, which although carefully integrated to existing hallways, has a more contemporary feeling.

In 1918, Cram designed the Celtic Cross World War I Memorial; it was made by the New England Granite Company of Westerly, Rhode Island.

[4] In 1949, a Second World War Memorial was dedicated in the church with the names of 493 men and women veterans of the parish carved into the north wall.

Shoemaker, who helped to found Alcoholics Anonymous and had long served as rector of Calvary Church in New York City, soon launched what he called the "Pittsburgh Experiment", seeking to bring Christian values into the workplace and everyday life.

The instrument was described in 1908 as "fully adequate to the great size of the building, filling it to the utmost when desired, and yet the softest tones are heard in the most remote parts of the church."

The case of the Casavant organ was carved by Andrew Druscelli of Irving and Casson A.H. Davenport Company of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

[4] Over the past several years, Calvary Episcopal Church has contracted with Luley & Associates to make revisions and repairs to its 1963/1991 Casavant Freres organ (IV/138).

1890, an Italian-style harpsichord (Dupree, 1984), a pair of Ludwig timpani, a set of Dutch-style handbells, and eleven cast-bronze Meneely bells housed in the tower.

Later several permanent cabins, showers, administration buildings, a craft house and a dispensary were built and the property improved with athletic fields.

[11] Archbishop Desmond Tutu visited Pittsburgh and delivered a sermon to an audience of 1,100 on Thursday, October 25, 2007 in Calvary Church.