File:Our Lady of Victory National Shrine and Basilica, Ridge Road, Lackawanna, NY - 52566382697.jpg

English: Built between 1921 and 1926, this Renaissance Revival-style Cathedral Basilica was designed by Emile Ulrich as a shrine paying homage to the Blessed Mother Mary. The basilica replaced the previous St. Patrick’s Parish Church, a Gothic Revival-style structure that stood on the same site that was damaged by fire in 1916, leading to temporary repairs, with Father Nelson Baker, whom built up the surrounding charitable institutions that were once located in a series of red brick Queen Anne-style buildings around the basilica, subsequently making plans for a new, grander church to replace the old building. Dedicated as a shrine to the Virgin Mary, the basilica was constructed with funds from a direct-mail fundraising club, which sourced funding from across the United States, and was built without incurring debt in the process.

The church was complete enough by late 1925 to hold its first worship services, with the first mass being held on Christmas in 1925, with the church being consecrated in May of 1926, with the church being elevated to the status of Minor Basilica by Pope Pius XI in July of 1926, being the second church being bestowed the title in the United States, with The Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis, Minnesota preceding it by five months.

The building originally featured two 165-foot-tall towers that were inspired by Portuguese Renaissance and Baroque architecture, but a thunderstorm in 1941 saw the towers struck by lightning and severely damaged, being lowered and simplified into their present form, with copper domes replacing what used to be the third tier of the towers, shortening them considerably, and the remaining portion of the towers being fully enclosed. This has led to the dome over the crossing being made more dominant in the building’s profile and front facade, with the original towers having stood as tall as the lantern on top of the dome, unbalancing the hierarchy of the composition to lean more towards the dome in the back, with it no longer being balanced as it originally was by the towers in the front.

The building is clad in marble with green copper on the domes, with the largest dome, located at the crossing of the nave and transepts, being 165 feet in height, and holding the distinction when completed in 1925 of being the second-largest dome in the United States, only surpassed in size by the dome atop the United States Capitol. However, much larger domes have since been built than the one on either building. The dome features a lantern at the top, and four copper statues of angels with trumpets, which are positioned at 90 degree intervals around the base, shifted 45 degrees from the rest of the building. The building features a multi-tiered massing with setbacks at the semi-circular apse on the rear facade, with roman arched and oxeye stained glass windows, a high gabled central nave and transepts with low shed and hipped-roofed aisles to either side, a recessed arched portion of the front facade between the base of the two towers with statues above a first floor portico with a domed copper roof and doric columns at the main entrance to the building, flanked by pilasters, quoins at the corners of the bases of the towers, and arcing colonnades flanking the front facade, with sculptures atop the ends, doric columns and pilasters, and pediments at the end bay of the colonnades. The interior of the basilica is richly decorated with murals, sculptures, classical columns and pilasters, an organ loft above the entrance, multiple tabernacles around the perimeter of the sanctuary, an ornate high altar with sculptures and spiraling stone columns with ionic capitals, African mahogany pews, and stone floors with multiple colors creating a decorative composition.

The basilica is in active use as the primary Catholic church for Lackawanna and South Buffalo, as well as being a popular pilgrimage site for devout Catholics in the Buffalo region. The basilica is part of the Diocese of Buffalo, though the diocese is seated at St. Joseph Cathedral in Downtown Buffalo.