Colerain Avenue leaves downtown Cincinnati as US 27 and climbs hard on its way out of the city — from 490 feet to 930 feet in the two miles that skirt Mount Airy Forest. Near the top of that climb, set back from the road on sixty wooded acres, is number 5000: a red-brick chapel with a stone cross on its gable, white statues flanking the entrance steps, and the long brick wings of a friary running off to either side.
The hill was a private estate before it was anything else. In the 1880s Joseph and Elizabeth Nurre, a lay couple, bought the country property above the city for $18,000 and gave it to the Franciscan friars. The cornerstone of the chapel was laid and blessed in August 1888. The friars moved into the old estate house that October, while the building went up around their new life, and Archbishop Henry Elder of Cincinnati consecrated the finished chapel on Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1889.
What draws pilgrims up the hill is small. A bone fragment of St. Anthony of Padua — a first-class relic — sits at the base of the saint's statue at the rear of the chapel. Tuesday belongs to St. Anthony in Franciscan devotion, and on Tuesdays the friars expose the Blessed Sacrament and give the blessing with that relic. In the nine weeks before his feast on June 13, they hand out blessed loaves called St. Anthony Bread.
📜 History & Spiritual Significance
The Franciscans reached Cincinnati long before they reached this hill. In 1844 friars came from St. Leopold Province in Innsbruck to minister to the German-speaking immigrants filling the Ohio valley, and the community they founded became the Province of St. John the Baptist, headquartered in the city. About 130 friars belong to it.
The estate on Mt. Airy came four decades later. Joseph and Elizabeth Nurre bought the hilltop property and handed it to the friars — the shrine's own history puts the purchase in the late 1880s and the price at $18,000, while the Archdiocese's newspaper dates it to 1880. What every account agrees on is the cornerstone, laid and blessed in August 1888, and the consecration of the chapel by Archbishop Henry Elder on Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1889.
Father Jerome Kilgenstein, the Provincial Minister, furnished the new chapel from Europe. Pieces came from France, Belgium, Bavaria, Holland and the Austrian Tyrol — the home country of the friars who had founded the province. Eight side altars stood in the original interior. A renovation in 1978 cleared them away and left the room spare and airy, with eight wooden statues of saints marking where the altars had been, and thirty-six stained glass windows lighting the walls. Above the altar hangs a replica of the San Damiano cross, brought here after the Duns Scotus College House of Philosophy closed in 1979.
For most of its history the house was a school of formation as much as a shrine. The first Franciscan novices at Mt. Airy took vows on the Feast of the Assumption in 1890, and by the province's own count nearly a thousand men entered the order here between that year and 1967, one class at a time. Devotion to St. Anthony grew alongside the novitiate, carried by lay visitors who climbed the hill to pray in a chapel that had been built for friars.
The chapel carries the title National Shrine of St. Anthony in the friars' own publications, in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati's list of major shrines, and in Catholic directories. It lies within the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and is kept by the friars of St. John the Baptist Province.
☩ Pilgrimage Sites in Cincinnati
National Shrine of St. Anthony and Friary
The chapel is Romanesque, in the same red brick as the friary wings that flank it. Inside, the 1978 renovation left a plain room: eight wooden saints along the walls where the side altars used to stand, thirty-six stained glass windows, and a replica of the San Damiano cross above the altar. At the rear, a statue of St. Anthony holds the first-class relic at its base — the bone fragment that is the reason most pilgrims make the climb, and the object of the Tuesday blessing.
Outside, the grounds run to sixty wooded acres, set back from Colerain Avenue and facing Mount Airy Forest across it. An outdoor shrine holds statues of St. Anthony, St. Francis and Our Lady of Guadalupe among banks of candles, with an outdoor cross and further statuary set along the walks.
🕯️ Annual Feast Days & Celebrations
Feast of St. Anthony of Padua — June 13
The shrine's patronal day. Blessed loaves of St. Anthony Bread are given out, and the friars stream the feast-day liturgy from the chapel on their own channel, which is how pilgrims outside Ohio keep the day with them.
Solemn Novena to St. Anthony — the nine Tuesdays before June 13
Tuesday is St. Anthony's day in Franciscan devotion, and the shrine keeps a novena service on Tuesdays through the year. In the nine weeks leading to the feast those Tuesdays are gathered into the Solemn Novena, each one closing with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and a blessing with the relic. The opening Tuesday moves with the calendar, since June 13 falls on a different weekday each year.
Pardon of Assisi — August 1 to August 2
From Vespers on August 1 until sundown on August 2, the plenary indulgence attached to the Portiuncula chapel near Assisi may be received in Franciscan churches. The Province of St. John the Baptist names this shrine among its own.
Transitus of St. Francis — October 3
On the eve of the founder's feast, Franciscan communities keep the Transitus, the remembrance of St. Francis's passage through death to life. At Mt. Airy it takes the form of an evening of story, song and prayer, open to anyone who comes.
Feast of St. Francis of Assisi — October 4
The founder's own feast, kept a day after the Transitus by the friars whose house this is — a Franciscan solemnity in a chapel dedicated to a different saint of the order.
🛏️ Where to Stay
Six Acres Bed & Breakfast (B&B) — The closest lodging to the shrine, 1.8 km northeast in the College Hill neighborhood: three suites on six landscaped acres, one of them with a full kitchen, breakfast included and parking free. Website
Gaslight Bed & Breakfast (B&B) — A historic four-story house in Clifton's Gaslight District, 4.6 km southeast of the shrine, named best bed and breakfast of 2017 by Cincinnati CityBeat. Website
Comfort Inn & Suites Cincinnati Uptown Clifton ⭐⭐⭐ — A chain hotel near the University of Cincinnati, 4.9 km southeast, with free breakfast, parking and WiFi — the conventional option for pilgrims who would rather not stay in a guest house. Reserve this hotel
🚗 Getting There
By Air: Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) lies across the Ohio River at Hebron, Kentucky, 17 km southwest of the shrine. John Glenn Columbus International Airport (CMH), 170 km northeast, has a wider choice of flights.
By Train: Amtrak's Cardinal, between Chicago and New York, calls at Cincinnati Union Terminal, 8 km southeast of the shrine. The train runs three times a week in each direction.
By Car: The shrine fronts Colerain Avenue — US 27 — in Mt. Airy. From I-71 or I-75, the Ronald Reagan Cross County Highway crosses the northern suburbs and ends at Colerain Avenue in Groesbeck; turn south from there. From downtown Cincinnati, Colerain Avenue runs northwest the whole way, climbing past Mount Airy Forest.
Local Transport: Metro route 19 runs the length of Colerain Avenue, from Government Square downtown through Northside and Mt. Airy out to Northgate.
📚 Further Reading
Books:
Charles Warren Stoddard. St. Anthony: The Wonder-Worker of Padua — A short life of the saint whose relic the chapel keeps, and the devotional background to the Tuesday novena.
Marion Amberg. Mary's Miracles: A Traveler's Guide to Catholic America — A traveler's survey of shrines across the United States, useful for building a wider Midwest pilgrimage around this one.
🎥 Recommended Videos
St. Anthony Shrine and Friary — An eleven-minute introduction to the Mt. Airy chapel and grounds, from the friars' own channel, We Are Franciscans.
Pay a Devotional Visit to the St. Anthony Shrine — A devotional walk-through of the shrine, also from the Franciscan friars of St. John the Baptist Province.
St. Anthony Friary and Shrine, Cincinnati, Ohio — A local-history film on the friary from the channel History in Your Own Backyard.
🔗 Useful Links
National Shrine of St. Anthony — The friars' official site, with the shrine's history, novena prayers and news from the community.
Franciscan Friars, Province of St. John the Baptist — The province that has kept the shrine since 1888, and its wider work across the Midwest.
Did You Know: St. Anthony Friary — The Archdiocese of Cincinnati's newspaper on the friary's founding, its European furnishings and the 1978 renovation.
Major Shrines in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati — The archdiocesan listing of shrines, this one among them.
GCatholic: National Shrine of St. Anthony — Directory entry with the shrine's address and ecclesiastical affiliation.
The Catholic Travel Guide: Saint Anthony Shrine — An independent pilgrim guide to the site.
Metro Route 19 — Colerain Avenue — Route information for the city bus that runs past the shrine door.
🧭 Nearby Pilgrimage Destinations
Carey (221 km north-northeast) — The Basilica and National Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation, where a replica of the Luxembourg statue was carried seven miles through a storm in 1875.
Saint Mary-of-the-Woods (252 km west) — The Sisters of Providence motherhouse in Indiana, holding the National Shrine of Our Lady of Providence and the tomb of St. Mother Théodore Guérin.
Massillon (316 km northeast) — The National Shrine of St. Dymphna, with a first-class relic of the seventh-century Irish martyr venerated as patron of those with mental and emotional illness.
Steubenville (362 km east-northeast) — The Portiuncula Chapel at Franciscan University, a stone replica of the chapel St. Francis rebuilt below Assisi.
Euclid (370 km northeast) — The National Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, a marble grotto built around stone carried from Massabielle.
🪶 Closing Reflection
"If you preach Jesus, he will melt hardened hearts; if you invoke him he will soften harsh temptations."
— St. Anthony of Padua, quoted by Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, February 10, 2010
