Yesterday, our group visited St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church. It’s in Millvale, a town just outside of Pittsburgh, across the Allegheny River. In the twentieth century, Millvale was home to a great host of immigrants due to its location near the river, including many Croatian Catholics who would call St. Nicholas their parish. Sixteen years after a fire devastated the original St. Nicholas, Father Albert Zagar hired local artist and fellow Croatian Maxo Vanka to paint a series of beautiful murals on almost every wall in the main area of the church. So, from the outside, St. Nicholas looks beautiful if unassuming. However, the inside is a stunning work of art. 

My favorite murals have to be Injustice and Christ on the Battlefield. There were actually two rounds of murals commissioned, one in 1937 and another in 1941, and both of these are from 1941. Vanka was heavily influenced by his time serving with the Belgian Red Cross as an ambulance driver, and the start of the second World War drove him to include striking anti-war imagery in several of the new murals. Christ on the Battlefield shows a horrified visage of Jesus crucified while being stabbed in the side(like he was by the Roman soldier in the Bible) by a soldier who was aiming for another. None of the soldiers are presented as evil- indeed, they are victims themselves, as the soldier stabbing Christ is piercing his Sacred Heart, representing how war and bloodshed between men is the greatest death of the soul and brings horrible pain to God. However, the corner of the mural, near the base of the cross, shows flowers growing, representing how there is always a chance for redemption. 

Next is Injustice, which is most likely the most famous of the murals. It shows a woman in a nun’s habit with piercing, hateful eyes peering out a gas mask. She wields a sword and unbalanced scales, treading upon pleading innocents trying to pray. The title Injustice is most obviously seen in the way her scales show money being worth more than food and how the smog behind her combines with her gas mask to show the great injustice that is war, and how it kills innocents. However, I also found it poignant that she is wearing a habit, perhaps meaning to show that the greatest injustice of all is when those close to God betray him. 

I think all of the murals connect to Millvale’s identity as a hub for Croatian immigrants. Just looking at these gives you a sense of the struggle of Croatian immigrants in the United States, and how God gave purchase and hope in a time wrought with terror. I found it profound how as you get closer to the sanctuary(the raiser area where the altar is), the paintings get more hopeful and calm, as they are closer to God. Of course, the actual reason for this is that Vanka was given more relaxed guidelines in 1941 and as the murals got further from where parishioners would be looking during mass, but I still think it’s interesting!