Throughout the Rendezvous Region, you’ll find numerous historic churches, each with their own unique charm. St. Catherine’s Church of Lomice, North Dakota, is no exception. Surrounded by miles of wide open spaces, St. Catherine’s was initially built for a congregation of Czech Americans and Bohemian settlers who called this area home. In 1936, the church was designed by Joseph Bell DeRemer, one of the finest architects in the state at the time. Interestingly, he was one of the architects who designed the North Dakota State Capitol building.

St. Catherine’s is a distinctive Gothic Revival church constructed of stacked granite fieldstones that contribute to the rustic charm of this rural church and its idyllic setting. The church has a steeply pitched cross-gabled roof with dormers. Rising above the roofline is a bell cote, which contains a bell donated by Bishop Aloisius Muench. He was of Czech ancestry and served a critical role in facilitating funding for St. Catherines.

The construction of St. Catherine’s was truly a community effort, with parishioners being entirely responsible for the hard work that went into the project. One parishioner was Joseph Vitek, a Czech-born stonemason and member of the parish, who supervised all the masonry work. The church was completed in 1938.

The beauty of St. Catherines extends beyond the walls of the church. On the five acres of land surrounding the building are several grottoes, one containing a statue of the Virgin Mary. St. Catherine’s Church of Lomice and its grottoes were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.