MILLVALE, Pa. (AP) — When the scaffolding came down inside the unassuming hilltop church near Pittsburgh, it revealed a raging storm of biblical proportions.
A wide-eyed Moses holds the Ten Commandments aloft in righteous fury, ready to shatter the tablets when his followers abandon God for a golden calf. Lightning sizzles and a tornado surges in the background.
The late artist Maxo Vanka created the mural in 1941, based on a scene from the Book of Exodus. It’s one of 25 murals that cover the walls and ceilings of St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church.
Vanka, a Croatian American immigrant like most of the original parishioners, painted the scenes in bursts of creative energy that led to marathon-long sessions where he captured stark social inequities alongside traditional religious themes.
The murals depict scenes with dualities. An angelic justice figure contrasts with a haunting figure of injustice in a World War I gas mask. Mothers — posed like the grief-stricken Madonnas of traditional pietas — weep over their sons who died in war or were worked to death by American industry. A callous tycoon ignores a beggar. A Madonna snaps a rifle on a battlefield.
At the same time, the murals honor the achievements of the immigrant parishioners and the consolations of faith, home and maternal care.
The work has drawn international visitors and become a beloved local landmark. One former priest for the church called it “The Sistine Chapel of Pittsburgh”— a sanctuary dominate …