www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Update on Holy Trinity in Bridgeport, CT

Chicago.

75% did not make the migration from Chicago, Oak Lawn, Lisle, and Joliet? That's news to me. Many did not but most did is what I've been told. Where might I see this information about the numbers who did not migrate?

My source on this is close to the developer who spoke personally with Bishop William...it was approximately $10 million and following the failed attempts to sell some of the property under Bishop Andrew and the former priest George. I give Bishop William alot of credit for not giving in to greed and taking the welfare of his people into consideration. There is no doubt in my mind that Bishop Andrew would have jumped for it...since he almost sold property for much less than that...

Would someone here please try to answer my question?

A do know this. A parish does need to be viewed like a business in at least this one aspect. If you ain't growing, you're DYING. Catholics need to recruit/evangelize a great deal more.

Why would he have asked for $2M? Your old parish would still have been closed but at least a group could have preserved it for posterity...

Abraham,

Let's be realistic. The likelihood of a corporation being formed for such a purpose and 'preserving it for posterity' isn't realistic, unless that corporation were able to put it to some use - which would not be as a church - and, if not that, what's the point?

It's then a building with memories, but one that would have generated expense for maintenance and created liability. No group is willingly going to take on such a burden and the associated costs - to what end? They couldn't hope to use it as a church, not one with canonical authorization at least. Truthfully, if the Eparchy was going to abandon the temple, it's probably a blessing that it was sold to the use of the respectful Christian congregation which it was.

Many years,

Neil

On the subject of Bridgeport, does anyone know when St John the Baptist closed?

I know that it was returned to the Exarchate in 1944 or thereabouts, after a prolonged civil court battle of some 6 or 7 years. It was still open in 1971, but was closed by 1982. Anyone's memory stretch back far enough to put a year to its closure? (and/or know where it was located in the city?)

Many years,

Neil

Are you referring to St. Johns on Arctic Street? If so that is now St. Johns in Trumbull. They moved to Trumbull around 1976.

Sdn. Chris

What makes you suggest I'm not being realistic? Do you know what the condition of the Church will be in 10, 25, 50 or more years in your community? The local Catholic high school was closed here in 1968. Due more to an obstinate bishop than anything else even thought rolls were suffering. It re-opened 11 years later and today it thrives as it never has before. Had the property been sold there is no way we would have a Catholic HS here locally today.

As I noted in my posting, the Holy Trinity rectory could be rented out along with the parish hall to gain some income to help offset costs. The goal would be to preserve the edifice for future generations. Unless you're giving up on the Catholic future of Bridgeport in its entirety, I don't see how my suggestion wouldn't be realistic.


It's really impossible to imagine a Catholic parish being abandoned here locally given the demand for space. But you're wrong when you suggest there are not people willing to shoulder the expense and liability -- at least around here.

IF the diocese tried to surplus a church the age of Holy Trinity around here, I suspect there would be a mad scramble of concerned Catholics (and others) to maintain the building as a Catholic edifice, even if that meant doing so outside of the diocese in the form of a 501(c)3.

Chris,

Of course it is! The minute I read your post I had this mad urge to bang my head on the table and say 'duh' (I resisted, because it would have wasted the bowl of cornflakes sitting there ). Thanks.

Many years,

Neil

It's a nice thought, but the likelihood of a resurgence of Byzantine Catholicism in Connecticut in 10 years is not high. The growth in all of our Churches is in the West and Southwest, not the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.


Well, that's well and good and I'm glad to hear of it, but that is not the reality of this side of the country, nor the Midwest. You can do some searches just on this site and read about the closures of magnificent temples, Eastern and Latin - the latter sometimes by the baker's dozen, throughout this section of the country.

Protests, sit-ins, appeals to Rome (occasionally, successful), notwithstanding, the doors are shuttered. Land here is at a premium in most places, particularly in urban areas - the time is long past when our cities and towns could expand outward like happens in the West. And the average congregation does not have the financial wherewithal, individually or collectively, to compete with developers' dollars.

Don't get me wrong, I despise the closure of holy places - check out the directory, where I try very hard to immortalize all the suppressed parishes. But, do you want to see what happens to closed churches? It's not pretty.

See St Joseph Byzantine Church, Cleveland [flickr.com]

Many years,

Neil

Indeed, this issue will be more in the forefront as the years move on as demographics don't lie. We Orthodox have the same problem and it is even more difficult as we are so disunited and quarrelsome. Around here the Roman Catholic Bishop of Syracuse has closed many churches. Two remain places of worship. One was sold to Haitian Pentacostals and the other to displaces Anglicans (who lost title to their church in bitter litigation. Their old church was literally 'given' to local Muslims and is now some sort of mosque.) Other s are vacant and shuttered and face the fate of St. Joseph's in Cleveland.

Preserving a closed church seems to me to be an absurd idea, sort of like keeping an embalmed Lenin in Red Square. The building becomes almost an idol and its original purpose is lost.

In the Midwest, it is difficult to see how urban land is at a premium, anymore, with many cities losing up to half of their population over the last thirty years. De-urbanization on this scale has not been seen since the Dark Ages, and as then, large cities such as Detroit or Cleveland have extensive tracts of land essentially abandoned. At some point, these cities will either contract physically, or will redesign their urban landscape to consist of semi-autonomous neighborhoods connected by large tracts of parkland (in the Middle Ages, that would have been pasture or farmland). In such an environment, real estate can be had for a song.

The problem is, the people for whom the churches were in tended have either moved away or dropped out, which leads to a maldistribution of resources: large numbers of churches in regions losing population, few churches in the areas that are gaining population.

Attachments to buildings are, in the end, sentimental. We do not worship a building, nor are we required to worship at a certain place, like the Jews on Mount Zion. The world is littered with the ruins of churches standing in the midst of what once were towns or villages, now abandoned. The Church should go where it is needed, and it should organize to do that in an effective manner.

But it should also do so in a way that protects the feelings of the people it wishes to attract and retain. One way to do that is to bring the people into the decision making process, or to make them in some way responsible for ensuring the financial health of their parish. When that's not possible, the choice of closing one or two parishes in declining neighborhoods and merging them with a third parish in an equally declining neighborhood is not a particularly good idea--it merely kicks the can down the road a bit.

A better idea might be finding out where people actually live, and then building "right sized" churches in areas convenient to them. Proceeds made by selling off old and underutilized churches should be used to purchase land and erection of a new temple. The Church should look into the possibility of land swaps with developers: in return for selling an old church to the developer, the Church gets (in addition to the selling price) a parcel of land elsewhere on which to build a new church. With a degree of foresight, it should be possible, gradually, to move the locus of our parishes from inner city neighborhoods to the suburbs where the people who worship in them actually live.

Finally, an heretical suggestion: many Orthodox jurisdictions find themselves in the same situation as us. Rather than building a Greek Catholic church on one block, and an Orthodox church on the next block, all future construction should be done in common--a single temple shared by both Orthodox and Greek Catholics, which would allow economies in expenses, as well as allowing for a shared life of prayer. There is nothing that prevents Orthodox and Greek Catholics from celebrating Vespers or Orthros or the Akathist or any other non-Eucharistic service together. In fact, having these services available would greatly enrich the liturgical life of Greek Catholics and help them restore the fullness of their liturgical heritage. Yes, there would still have to be separate Divine Liturgies, but this would be a positive step towards a time when that would no longer be necessary.

Lest you think this is a fantasy, the Melkite and Antiochian Orthodox Patriarchates have such a policy already in place in the Middle East. It seems to work well for them. Perhaps when you are struggling for physical survival, things get put in a clearer perspective.

Two points.

When the Roman Catholic churches in Iowa City were consolidated they did exactly what you are suggesting. The old churches we abandoned (one got destroyed by a tornado which may or may not be a heavenly confirmation of the plan) and new churches were built in the suburban areas where people had moved.

There is a small Serbian Orthodox congregation that serves Divine Liturgy at the Maronite Church in Austin, TX, so sharing does happen here as well.