Elizabeth There is even a lot of history and tradition to learn going to mass on a Sunday morning in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
You have to enter the church through the Bell Tower, a unique entry that has been listed in Ripley’s Believe it or Not as the only church in America one enters through the Bell Tower.
In a city in the Ozark Mountains that does not have any two roads that meet at a right angle, since everything is built into the rock of the mountains including the curved roads that take you to the various heights of the roads and buildings, it is not so strange that the parking lot for St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic Church is a block higher than the church itself, and the sidewalk between the two includes the church’s Bell Tower you pass under. Nor is it unusual in this charming, friendly town to see only the roof of the gift shop for the church as you pass under the Tower and down the road to the main door of St. Elizabeth’s .
The Church itself was built as a memorial chapel in 1904 . Richard Krens, a Missouri industrialist was part owner of the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad, which ran from St. Louis to the town at the time, as well as a financial backer for the construction of the Crescent Hotel on the hill. He and his family spent the summer in Eureka Springs in the late 1890s. A staircase ran from Crescent Gardens in town to the hotel at the top of the mountain; it was on this staircase that Kerens said farewell to his mother, Elizabeth, when he left for a business trip. When she died suddenly while he was gone, he decided to build a memorial to her where he had last seen her…in Crescent Gardens. That memorial today is the domed vestibule of the Church and the Bell Tower higher up.
After coming through the Bell Tower, the hill between the parking lot and the walkway includes the 14 stations of the Cross, all in white marble and leading down the walk to the vestibule of the church.
The two bronze and mahogany doors in the vestibule weigh 1500 pounds and are original; the windows are all rose-red, in reference to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and a mother’s love.
A crystal chandelier in the center of the Rotunda was a memorial gift from another parishioner nearly half a century ago. It features more than 7,500 faceted crystals and the same leaf design that is on the church’s stonework as well as its marble altars.
The church nave and sanctuary have statues and paintings to many saints and angels, each with a story, some dating to 1885 when they were in the chapel of a hospital that was there at the time, others as new as 2019 and painted by Mississippi artist Bill Moss. The old Baptismal Font, still in use, is painted to look like marble and gold but is actually made of wood. Two angels on the sides of the main altar were also from the 1800s hospital.
The crucifix above the altar is serpentine marble designed like the cross at St. Peter’s in Rome. Carved by a local stone mason, the Body of Christ on the cross was hand-cast by another local artist, Bruce Wright, and is made from brass he obtained by melting down door knobs.
The same friendliness exhibited throughout the town is thriving at St. Elizabeth’s where mass starts by welcoming both parishioners and visitors, inviting strangers and newcomers to worship together, and where the pastor, Father Joseph Archibong, engages the congregation in a hearty give and take during the homily.
And that gift shop whose roof you see from the parking lot is open six days a week, and filled with everything from holy pictures and medals to religious art, with an invitation to simply stop in and say hello.
