Historic Connections
It was in St. Mary of Victories that the Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, C.Ss.R., made his Missouri preaching debut. Together with his Redemptorist companions, Fathers Schneider, Jacob and Gulielm, Seelos preached a parish mission in German from the first to fifteenth of October 1865.
In 1872, five women came to St. Louis from Germany, under the leadership of Mother Mary Odilia Berger, having been unable to live out their lives of religious dedication and service due to the policies of the German government known as the Kulturkampf. They found lodging in an attic in the church complex, having the same door to their residence as to the church. They organized themselves in 1874 as a religious congregation under the name of the Sisters of St. Mary, taking their name from the church