Catedral basílica de San Agustín is the Spanish name for the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, which faces you here on Cathedral Place. This is the historic cathedral and the seat of the Catholic Bishop of St. Augustine. Its congregation was established in 1565, making it the oldest Christian congregation in the contiguous United States. The building you see was constructed over five years, 1793–1797, and was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark on April 15, 1970.
Think of how, in the mid-1560s, the Spanish Empire pushed northward from the Caribbean into unexplored Florida and founded the colony of St. Augustine, now the oldest continuously occupied European settlement on the United States mainland. Spanish settlers immediately established a Catholic shrine here; from the mid-1500s to the mid-1600s Spain underwent a Catholic Revival in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Early colonists, mainly sailors and soldiers with little architectural skill, first raised a simple, rapidly built church of disparate materials.
Stand here and imagine that long span of faith and empire. Picture the earliest congregation gathering here in 1565, centuries before this façade rose between Charlotte and St. George Streets.