Jacksonville's mother parish, dedicated to Our Lady under her Immaculate Conception, rebuilt in stone after the city burned and still keeping daily Mass in the business district.
This church earns a visit on its own terms and not as an appendix to St. Augustine. It is the oldest Catholic parish in Jacksonville, established on the feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, and its whole history is a record of a congregation that would not disperse. Union soldiers burned and looted the first church in 1863. The parish built again. The Great Fire of 1901 took the entire parish complex along with most of the city. The parish built again, in stone this time, and opened the present church on the feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1910.
Come for Mass or confession, which the parish offers daily. Then look at what a Marian dedication meant to people who kept losing the building: they named their church for the woman preserved from the ruin that touches everything else, and then they rebuilt it twice.
The parish was established on December 8, 1854, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, in the same year Blessed Pius IX defined the dogma. Before that, Jacksonville's Catholics had been served by visiting priests from St. Augustine and Savannah. The church of 1873 replaced what the Civil War destroyed. Then, on a single day in 1901, fire crossed one hundred and forty-six blocks of Jacksonville and left the parish with nothing.
The congregation commissioned the architect M. H. Hubbard in 1905, began construction in 1907, and opened the finished church on December 8, 1910, the same feast on which the parish had been founded fifty-six years earlier. In 2013 the church was raised to the rank of minor basilica.
The church is Gothic Revival in gray stone: two unequal towers with red tiled spires, a great pointed-arch window over the entrance, a clerestory above the aisle roofs, and a long stained glass program down the nave. It was designed to be permanent in a city that had just proved how impermanent wood was. Read the elevation from the street and the intent is clear enough. Stone, height, and a spire visible above the commercial blocks around it.
Parish established on December 8, 1854, the feast of the Immaculate Conception
Church burned and pillaged by Union soldiers in 1863; a brick church followed in 1873
The parish complex destroyed in the Great Fire of 1901
The present church designed by M. H. Hubbard, begun in 1907, and opened on December 8, 1910
Raised to the rank of minor basilica in 2013
The dedication is not decorative. A parish that had been burned out twice placed itself under Mary conceived without sin, and kept the feast of December 8 as both its patronal day and the anniversary of its rebuilding. The minor basilica title given in 2013 binds the church more closely to the Roman Pontiff and carries the ordinary indulgence privileges of such churches, received under the usual conditions of confession, Communion, and prayer for the Holy Father.
Confession is heard before every Mass, which is unusually generous.
Built deliberately to outlast another fire.
A simple way to join the parish rather than observe it.
Mass or confession and quiet prayer.
Mass, the windows, the facade, and a walk around the downtown block.
Mass or confession first, then the church, then the exterior. Confirm the current worship location before you set out.
The basilica is in the middle of downtown Jacksonville, about an hour north of St. Augustine by car. Check the parish site before travel; renovation work has moved the current worship schedule out of the church itself.
As of August 26, 2026 the parish reports ongoing renovations. Weekday Mass and confession are in Leon Hall, downstairs from the courtyard, and weekend Mass and confession are celebrated simultaneously in Leon Hall and the Providence Center beside the rectory. A pilgrim who arrives expecting to pray in the basilica interior may not be able to.
Before Travel
Getting There
The basilica sits in the downtown core rather than near the beaches or the airport.
A minor basilica carries a particular bond with the Bishop of Rome. Pilgrims may seek the indulgences attached to such churches under the ordinary conditions the Church lays down: sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion, and prayer for the Holy Father's intentions.
Basilica of the Immaculate ConceptionPray for a city that has had to rebuild, and for the people who stayed to do it.
Basilica of the Immaculate ConceptionSource note Traditional attributions are presented as tradition, with documentation named where it exists.
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