Father Eugene Engels
St. John the Evangelist Church
Plaquemine, La.

St. John the Evangelist Church Plaquemine, La.

St. John the Evangelist Church: this church is the third on this site and it was built in 1927. The stained glass in the church was added sometime after World War II, which was approximately twenty years after the church was completed. Until that time the windows of the church had just clear glass in them. The stained glass was done by a German artist by the name of Emile Frei who had escaped the Nazis and come to this country and in coming brought with him a considerable amount of his glass from Germany. He did some rather prominent churches right in this area with stained glass using the glass he had brought from Europe.

St. John the Evangelist Painting by Charles Barbier Baton Rouge, La.

Sacred Heart in Baton Rouge is one of his churches, he did the stained glass there and, of course the glass here at St. John Church here in Plaquemine. The style of the glass in this church is known as "Pseudo-Gothic," and its my understanding that this means it is composed of very small pieces of glass. If you go to a church like the cathedral in Baton Rouge you will see that the stained glass is really a lot of painting on large pieces of glass. But here at St. John the figures are formed by piecing together very small pieces of glass with lead in between.