Constructed between 1870 and 1875 to meet the needs of Semarang's growing Catholic population, the red-brick church building was designed by the Dutch architect W. I. van Bakel and built at a cost of 110,000 gulden.

The church grew extensively over the following fifty years, at first dominated by ethnic Europeans and persons of mixed descent but later having a majority indigenous congregation.

The Roman Catholic Church first entered Semarang, Dutch East Indies, in what is now Central Java, Indonesia, in the early 19th century.

In 1808 Father Lambertus Prinsen (1777–1840) was sent from the Netherlands to the Indies as the pastor for Semarang and several surrounding settlements, including Salatiga and Klaten.

He quickly established a council for handling religious duties, and baptisms began the following year; fourteen people, mostly Dutch, were baptised in 1809.

The first stone was laid by the pastor Lijnen on 1 October 1870, and construction continued smoothly until 12 May 1873, when the nearly completed tower collapsed; various reasons have been put forward, including an insufficient frame and poor quality bricks.

After the collapse, the design of the church was modified to be lower, and further construction was undertaken using bricks imported from the Netherlands as ballast for ships.

[12][13] Keijzer, before stepping down as head pastor in 1894, sent a letter to the Netherlands asking that men be sent to learn the Javanese language, to enable them to preach to the people and translate the catechism and some prayer books.

Ultimately van Lith was the most successful, establishing a school in Muntilan to train teachers, who were hoped to further spread Catholicism through their teaching duties.

In 1915 the chapel in Karangpanas, in the southern part of Semarang, was elevated to the status of parish church and dedicated to St. Athanasius.

[19] The occupation government captured numerous (mostly Dutch) men and women, both clergy and laymen, and instituted policies that changed how services were held.

They forbade the use of Dutch in services and in writing, and seized several church properties; several others, including the presbytery at Gedangan, were protected by the clergy.

[20] After two European head pastors, G. Schoonhoff and G. de Quay, were confined, ultimately on 27 August 1943 the ethnic Javanese Soegijapranata took on parish duties in addition to his work as vicar apostolic.

For instance, on 28 February 1944 a Latin-language Mass was delivered at Gedangan by Paul Aijiro Yamaguchi [ja], bishop of Nagasaki.

[21] On 17 August 1945, shortly after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and with Japan's defeat an increasing certainty, President Sukarno proclaimed the independence of the Indonesian state.

These detentions, and post-revolution politics which decimated the European population in independent Indonesia, ensured that the congregation remained dominated by the Javanese and other indigenous peoples.

[25] St. Joseph's Church is located on the east side of Ronggo Warsito Street in Semarang, Central Java.

[28] Further ornamentation of the walls includes carvings depicting the fourteen Stations of the Cross as well as twelve triforiums holding paintings illustrating the Lord's Prayer, the Bread of Life Discourse, and praise to Christ and Mary.

However, over the years the machinery wore down, and in 1978 it was replaced with a round face decorated with the Christogram IHS (short for "Iesus Hominum Salvator", meaning "Jesus, Saviour of Men").