St. Nicholas Church is a small Romanesque cathedral in Millvale, a traditionally working class neighborhood, where houses were built smashed against one another, and narrow streets climb crazily up, down and around hills.

Nearby, an artist paints peacefully beside traffic on a one-way street lined with parked vehicles whose e-brakes, hopefully, are on.

The Roman Catholic parish serves a Croatian-American population whose ancestors arrived near the turn of the 20th century, along with a recent influx of immigrants from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina who fled the ethnic wars of the 1990s.

Though it's exterior is humble brick, inside, the church is covered in provocative murals by Croatian artist Maxo Vanka.

Vanka was born in 1889 and immigrated to the United states during the 1930s. The artist was spiritual, but did not claim a religion. Still, the priest who commissioned the paintings gave Vanka free reign.

According to Vanka's daughter, Peggy Vanko Braska, the artist worked 16 to 18-hour days, often accompanied by a small sparrow he'd rescued.

He painting powerful scenes that mixed traditional biblical imagery with modern details from Croatia, Pittsburgh and World War I.

The murals were done in 1937 and 1941, with the latter batch reflecting Vanka's pacifist beliefs and anguish over what was taking place in Europe.

Legend has it a prominent Pittsburgh family took offense at this depiction of a wealthy man reading a 1941 stock report while being served by a black man and ignoring a beggar beneath his table. The family allegedly offered the parish a large sum to paint over the mural, but the parish refused.

In other paintings, Vanko shows how Croatian mothers raised their children for war…

…while Pittsburgh mothers raised their children for industry and still faced tragedy.

Above the alter, Mary is dressed in traditional Croatian garb and is surrounded by regular Pittsburgh folks and the Millvale priest who commissioned the work.

In ceiling murals, Jesus tries to intervene between soldiers and is pierced in the process…

…while a horrified Mary grasps weapons of war.

The church is open to the public and holds regular mass services, including one each month in Croatian.