Welcome to Mary Our Queen – Mary Our Queen

Welcome To Our Visitors!

On behalf of the parishioners of Mary Our Queen and Pastor, Rev. Darragh Griffith we welcome you to our website! We are always seeking new ways to get our message to parishioners, prospective parishioners, and visitors of our beautiful parish. Please use this site to access the information you need about our parish, our ministries and to strengthen your faith. We look forward to hearing from you and answering any questions you may have. Our parish family is growing continually and our families are involved in over 30 ministries. Please carefully consider using your time and talent to support the message of Christ through our ministries.

Please be sure to introduce your self to our Pastor and visit the welcome table after mass. We invite you to become part of our parish home here at Mary Our Queen. God Bless you and your family!

Through God’s grace, we dedicated our permanent church in March of 2019. Our new church is more than just a building. The preservation of the unique artifacts from St. Gerard, plus the combination of a century-old classic design of a century-old church beautifully appointed makes it an inviting place to worship for all. We strive to be a good neighbor by sharing the resources we have because, as Catholics, we believe it is our mission to serve others, inside and outside of our parish.

With the new church in place, we were able to vacate our temporary church and use this much-needed space as a parish hall with a future commercial kitchen in the plans. In addition, the current parish hall is being converted into a much-needed facility for our youth teen program. Our improved facilities will allow our parishioners to participate in our many ministries, serve others and leave a lasting legacy for the next generation of Catholics to worship in Peachtree Corners.

Please enjoy our chronological slide show documenting the progress we’ve made!

In 1997, Mary Our Queen broke ground on building our former sanctuary officiated by retired priest Father David Dye and the late Msgr. Donald Kiernan. The buildings were always considered to be temporary facilities until we could one day build our permanent church.
Mary Our Queen dedicated our former sanctuary in the Spring of 1998. The late Archbishop John Francis Donoghue, Father David Dye, and Deacon Stone presided over the ceremony.
Our Spring of 1998 Dedication was attended by many of our MOQ's founding members who had attended mass in our temporary office park building.
In 2008, Father David Dye (now retired pastor of MOQ) desired to build our permanent church and began talks with William Harrison, AIA, of Harrison Design. On a trip to New York, Father Dye learned about St. Gerard Catholic Church from Buffalo, NY, which had been de-consecrated and was seeking a buyer. The design of St Gerard closely matched the initial conceptual drawings for our new church from Harrison Design. The hope was “preservation through relocation” by moving the entire structure from Buffalo, NY to Norcross, Ga.
Unfortunately, the estimated cost of $16 million to relocate St. Gerard was cost prohibitive. In 2015, it was decided to scale back the project and build a new church, one that closely replicated the 105-year-old Buffalo church, at an estimated cost of $8.5 million.
Although we could not move St Gerard in its entirety, MOQ is giving the shuttered church in Buffalo a second life as a place of worship by bringing artifacts from St. Gerard to our new Church. The altars, statues and 105-year-old oak pews from St. Gerard will live on in Mary Our Queen.
Under the direction of our current pastor, Father Darragh Griffith, Mary Our Queen's Building Committee approved Harrison’s architectural design and Construction Firm Whiting-Turner was contracted to build our new church.
The century-old stained glass windows were produced by famed Buffalo Artist Otto Andrle, and are historically significant for their American origin at a time when most church windows were produced in Europe.
Andrle, a long-time employee of the Buffalo Stained Glass Works, founded his own studio in 1913. His work can also be found in Our Lady of Victory Basilica, Lackawanna, N.Y. which is considered one of the largest and most important installations of domestically produced stained glass in the country.
On October 29, 2017, Mary Our Queen celebrated our official groundbreaking. Twelve shovels were displayed in the foreground and in the background the congregation and Knights of Columbus honor guard listened as Father Darragh Griffith, pastor of Mary Our Queen Church, shared some words during the ceremony at the Norcross parish. Photo By Michael Alexander, Georgia Bulletin
Quickly, our new church’s steel beams were erected showing the framework of the new church that will stand on our current property.
The front facade of the new church was designed to mimic St Gerard, which is a Gilded Age approximation (at one-third scale) of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, one of the four major basilicas of Rome.
Workers from Lynchburg Glass, Lynchburg, VA install the restored stained glass windows in our new church.
Beautiful Stained glass windows are installed in the Sacristy.
View of the lower stained glass windows after being installed on the lower level of the church with the view of the windows in the upper floor of the sanctuary above.
View of the Choir Loft above the 3 Nave Doors with Stained Glass Windows from St Gerard.
View of the Right Aisle looking back towards the rear devotional of St. Gerard's Pieta.
View of the Apse above the Altar
The marble Altar of Repose that holds the Tabernacle from St. Gerard is reassembled.