“Holy Toledo” is a phrase I love. I’ve been able to use it in a job-appropriate manner, whether as the Blade religion editor covering Holy Toledo or in some of the sermons I’ve delivered.

The origins of the phrase are not definitive. The standard stories include that there are a lot of churches in the city; that we picked it up from Toledo, Spain, which was called saintly and holy from around the years 500 to 1600 because of its prominence for both Catholics and Muslims (or because the Islamic Moors were ejected and the remaining Christians thought that made Toledo holy); that evangelist Billy Sunday used the term when preaching in Toledo, Ohio, in 1908 or 1911; and that, before World War I, most Toledo street corners seemed to have either a church or a bar.

I’ve wondered if Holy Toledo became popular through vaudeville connections, similar to “will it play in Peoria” — that Toledo was not a highlight for the stage acts because of low box-office sales (as sparse a crowd as during Holy Week) or the crowd wasn’t very responsive so the audience must have been a church congregation.

Vaudevillians Joe E. Brown and Danny Thomas were from Toledo and might have had a hand in the phrase catching on, according to materials that Ben Malczewski, Toledo Lucas County Public Library media relations coordinator, gave me.

Mr. Malczewski also told me that reference librarians get the “Holy Toledo” origin query about once a month — more frequently if you group it with other nicknames for Toledo, which include Frog Town and the Glass City, both of which have more definite origins.

One other origin possibility comes from legal — or illegal — lore. During the Roaring Twenties and the Depression, it’s said, crime bosses and police had come to an agreement that Toledo was the “Holy Land,” so criminals were free from prosecution as long as they didn’t commit their offenses in Toledo. Which, the story goes, means Toledo was home base for enterprising criminals hitting Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and elsewhere.

Getting past the origins, the phrase gets plenty of Toledo use. There was the 1998 book Holy Toledo: Religion and Politics in the Life of “Golden Rule” Jones by Marnie Jones, a descendant of “Golden Rule.”

Crystal Bowersox’s song ”Holy Toledo” was on the airwaves in 2010 after her second-place finish on American Idol boosted her career.

There was only one issue of Holy Toledo Magazine, published as 2013 began, with Toledoan Clint Longenecker on the cover. Though not specifically sacred content, the magazine gave “good news” including a focus on some religious people and activities. Churches and other religious organizations were among the advertisers. The magazine’s staff was not identified.

The website holytoledo.org, the remnant of the Holy Toledo Magazine project, states, “Our aim is to affirm a brighter, better community by focusing on the positive stories throughout the greater Toledo region.”

There's also holytoledo.com, owned since 1996 by Denise Ohio of Monroe, Wash., an independent filmmaker whose company is Holy Toledo Pictures Inc. Her current documentary is Verona: The Story of the Everett Massacre, about a 1916 confrontation in Everett, Wash., between Industrial Workers of the World union members and the sheriff’s department.

Today Craig Katz is doing his part, via the Mud Hens, the Walleye, Hensville, and the Swamp Shop, to get Holy Toledo to pay off locally. He is the director of merchandise and licensing for those entities, and among the goods are Holy Toledo hats — including the baseball cap I’ve worn for a few years — clothing, mugs and cups, and smaller trinkets.

“The phrase was actually trademarked for merchandise by a local businessman named Jack Neenan,” Mr. Katz told me by email, “and we used to buy some Libby Glass items from him with ‘Holy Toledo’ printed on them. They sold very well. After he retired, Jack let the trademark expire. We then made the decision to not only keep ‘Holy Toledo’ merchandise alive, but to also expand it, so we filed for the trademark. It was awarded to us, and we started producing a few items with it.”

They sold well, Mr. Katz said, so they expanded into a Holy Toledo Brand, marketing merchandise with other Toledo references like “419,” “TOL,” and “Glass City.”

“We are the only ones who can put ‘Holy Toledo’ on merchandise due to the trademark registration” now, Mr. Katz said. “It’s a fun line to have and appeals to both sports and nonsports fans alike.”

October also saw the Holy Toledo Laughfest in a number of venues, including in Hensville.

Holy Toledo, what range that phrase has.

Contact TK Barger at tkbarger@theblade.com, 419-724-6278 or on Twitter @TK_Barger.

First Published January 7, 2017, 5:00 a.m.