Inside a historic church painted with murals that reflect searing social commentary

By Peter Smith

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