"The "Mother Church of Columbus" has a long and rich history, from its origins as a mission served by the Dominicans of Somerset, Ohio, in 1833, to its present position as a thriving center of spiritual strength in its downtown neighborhood, now known as the Discovery District. From a handful of parishioners in 1837, when construction began on the city's first Catholic Church with a small number of early German Catholic families, through a burgeoning influx of immigrants from Germany and Ireland after 1848, Holy Cross became the center of Catholic Columbus. Through post-Civil War development of the capital city as a transportation and industrial center, into and beyond all the 20th Century events of wars, the Great Depression, inner-city blight, urban renewal and downtown revitalization, Holy cross and its parishioners have indeed "held high the Cross."
Holy Cross church is the successor, on the same property, of Columbus' first Catholic Church, Saint Remigius, which was dedicated on April 29, 1838. Saint Remigius, who died in 533, was an archbishop in Rheims, France, no far from where the first pastor, Father Damien Juncken, was reared. Father Juncker who served the early years of Holy Cross, later became the first bishop of Alton, Illinois (presently the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois). He was the first of four pastors who were elevated later to the episcopacy.
By 1843 when the first resident pastor, Father William Schonat, arrived, the small Saint Remigius Chapel, measuring fifty by thirty feet, was too small to accommodate the growing number of Catholics moving to Columbus. It was decided to build the present church in 1844 and at the request of Father Schonat, to dedicate the Church to the Holy Cross. The inscription now covered by the "Follow Me" statue reads from Galatians 6:14: God forbid that I should glory, but in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world. Archbishop John Baptist Purcell dedicated the present structure which contains over 800,000 bricks, on Sunday, January 19, 1848. No other Catholic or Protestant church in Columbus is older.
In 1877, following Vespers celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the episcopacy of Pope Pius IX, a fire engulfed the Church destroying the high altar, organ, church ceiling and choir loft, causing over $20,000 in damages. Following the fire, the sacristies were enlarged and four rooms were added above the sacristies to house the Brothers of Mary, who taught the boys of the school for nearly forty years.
The beautiful windows in the Church were designed by the famous Zettler Studios of Germany and installed after World War One. During the war, the windows were stored on a dock in Germany."
-- Source