Cleveland Mass Mob XXXVI — Saint Colman

Cleveland Mass Mob XXXVI
Saint Colmán     
11a.m. Sunday 27 October 2019

West 65th and Madison

We are returning to the Irish cathedral. Cleveland Mass Mob IV on a rainy Pentecost 2014 was at St. Colman's. When i entered Saint Colman's church on Saint Patrick's Day 2009, a television cameraman behind me, said in surprise, “this place looks better than the cathedral [St. John the Evangelist Cleveland]”. Yes, St. Patrick's Mass, every year, is the most well attended Mass at St. Colman's. Let us try to have a healthy fraction on Mass Mob Day.

Last year the parish celebrated the church building's centennial. The parish began in 1880.

Cleveland Mass Mob XXXV — Saint Jerome

Cleveland Mass Mob XXXV

Saint Jerome

10 a.m. Sunday 29 September 2019

15000 Lake Shore Boulevard

We are returning, we mobbed St. Jerome on June 28, 2015. We were well received. Saint Jerome's is ending their celebration of being a parish in this, their century year. Our Lady of Peace on Shaker Blvd. is celebrating their one hundredth year too. The European War (now called World War One) had ended, and national resources allowed for the formation of church expansion. Cleveland still had incoming migration and new parishes were created. Saint Jerome's is in North Collinwood, just beyond Bratenahl, a wee distance from Lake Erie.

The present church building began in 1950. It is one of the few post war churches built in a gothic fashion. The stained glass windows were made in Boston in 1951 in mediæval style, the great entrance window has delicate stone tracery, and niche stones are cut in that ancient look.  For some reason there is a heraldic Scottish lion, and thistle on the outside walls. Entry door are solid wood with carvings. In addition there is a beautiful side chapel dedicated to St. Joan of Arc. O, yes, Saint Jerome is a beautiful church.

Cleveland Mass Mob XXXIV — Saint John Cantius

Cleveland Mass Mob XXXIV — Saint John Cantius

11.30 a.m. Sunday 11 August 2019

906 College

This will be a repeat mobbing. Cleveland Mass Mob X was on All Souls Day 2014.

This area of town is now called Tremont, and few places in this country are so dense with churches. When the smokey mills were being heavily manned by immigrants and sons of immigrants, they built churches for every nation and their creeds that populated them; in addition to the previous Germans and Yankees that came before them. [see and click]

Saint John Cantius was the Polish parish. It is one of the many churches in America, that was built in the Polish cathedral style. It is worth seeing. It is also one of the churches in town with an art deco element, here the angels above the capitals between the bays of the colonnades.

Cleveland Mass Mob XXXIII—Saint Adalbert

Cleveland Mass Mob XXXIII 
Saint Adalbert & Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament
11 a.m. Pentecost Sunday 9 June 2019
2347 East 83rd Cleveland

We will be revisiting the parish. Cleveland Mass Mob III was 25 May 2014, this time on Pentecost. Every year that Cleveland Mass Mob has been active we mob on Pentecost. Pentecost is the birthday of the church, it is when the Holy Spirit filled the followers of Jesus. It is the most opportune date in the year for mobbing.

The exterior of Saint Adalbert, Cleveland is patterned after the neo-classical cathedral in Salzburg; but it is older, the original was bombed during WWII. The original Czech (Bohemian) congregation moved into their second home in 1911. In 1961, there was a merger with Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, which had been the first African American parish in Cleveland. The combined parish was closed for public worship, for a time, waiting for Rome to successfully intervene.

Cleveland Mass Mob XXXII—Immaculate Heart of Mary

Cleveland Mass Mob XXXII—Immaculate Heart of Mary
4 p.m. Saturday 4 May 2019
6700 Lansing Avenue
May crowning after Mass

The parish began in 1894, and was separate from the Diocese of Cleveland.  Fr. Anton Kolaszewski was the founding pastor. He earlier was the first pastor at St. Stanislaus, a few blocks away. In 1908, the parish joined the diocese.

The original wooden church had a fire. The present church is from 1914, and is Romanesque in architecture. The windows are from Chicago's Munich Studio, and made by Max Guler. The image above is Jesus calming the Tempest, and speaks to the early history of the parish's relationship to the diocese. The windows are beautiful, and there are smaller figures to appreciate within the larger picture.

Currently a replica of the "Gdansk Shipyard Workers Monument" is in the church. The original was built in memoriam of workers killed in the strike of August 1980. This copy had been in St. Casimir Cleveland from 1985 to 2009, and to save it for the Polish community it was transferred to Immaculate Heart.

Cleveland Mass Mob XXXI — St. Philomena

Cleveland Mass Mob XXXI

St. Philomena — East Cleveland

13824 Euclid Avenue 

10 a.m. Sunday 31 March 2019

Fr. Thomas Mahon was pastor at St. Thomas Aquinas Cleveland. Glenville (which then was outside of Cleveland) wanted a parish. Fr. Mahon would also become pastor at the new parish of St. Aloysius. People in East Cleveland asked Fr. Mahon to organise another parish, which became St. Philomena in 1902. St. Philomena is still in East Cleveland on Euclid Avenue. At the time, there were no Catholic churches on Euclid Avenue inside the city of Cleveland. That part of Euclid was Millionaires' Row, and no Catholic churches were allowed. On the parallel Superior Avenue there were several, St. Thomas Aquinas being the furthest east.

Since 2009, St. Philomena and St. Ann (Cleveland Heights) are part of the new combined parish of Communion of Saints. The closed Christ the King (East Cleveland), and closed St. Louis (Cleveland Heights) were merged into the new parish.

An open door is an invite.

Cleveland Mass Mob XXX — Saint Stanislaus

Cleveland Mass Mob XXX

Saint Stanislaus

11.30 a.m. 7 October 2018

East 65th & Forman

This will be a second mobbing, four years after the first.

The parish of St. Stanislaus was formed in 1873, and at first worshipped at St. Mary's of the Flats (the first Catholic church and later cathedral in Cleveland). In 1879 they moved to the Franciscan St. Joseph on Woodland. In 1881 a new church was built in South Broadway area of Newburgh called Warszawa. The present church was built from 1886 to 1891. St. Stan's exterior was built in Gothic revival style. Of the Catholic churches in the US, built in that style, only St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan is larger.  The church was 232 feet high, with two steeples. St. Michael the Archangel, on the west side, had its taller steeple at 232 feet also. At the time, these were the two tallest buildings in Cleveland. A tornado struck on 21 April of 1909, the twin steeples toppled, and a child was killed. The steeple on St. Wenceslas on Broadway also fell. St. Stan's was rebuilt to a height 122 feet high.

St. Stanislaus is gothic on the outside, on the inside it is baroque, it is the most rococo church in Cleveland. During the year, it is often well garlanded with plants and other decorations. In addition to being a parish church, it is also a shrine church, and the co-cathedral of Cleveland. The shrine is that of St. Stanislaus Szczepanowski (Bishop and Martyr). Above is a window depicting King Boleslaus II the Bold murdering Stanislaus. Stanislaus was bishop of Krakow, a successor to the office was Karol Wojtyla (St. John Paul II), there are items of his in the church.

Saint Stanislaus is a Polish parish church, and the architectural style is loosely called the Polish Cathedral Style in America. Many such parish churches across the country were built on a large scale. Cleveland has a few of them, and we have mobbed them.

Cleveland Mass Mob XXIX — Our Lady of Good Counsel

Cleveland Mass Mob XXIX
Our Lady of Good Counsel
11 a.m. Sunday 5 August 2018
4423 Pearl Road

Under canon law, a parish's name can be changed, but the name of the church stays the same. In 2010 the parishes of Corpus Christi and Our Lady of Good Counsel were merged as Mary Queen of Peace. 

In the XIXth century Old Brooklyn was not a part of Cleveland. South Brooklyn was annexed in 1905, and other parts of the township between 1915 and 1917. A Catholic mission, Sacred Heart of Mary, began in 1873 and was German; in 1894 elevation to a parish and the arrival of the Sanguinists [Society of the Most Precious Blood]. In 1917 the parish became Our Lady of Good Counsel, and the new church is the present church.

Cleveland Mass Mob XXVIII — Saint Patrick, Ohio City

Cleveland Mass Mob XXVIII 

Saint Patrick, Ohio City

11 o'clock a.m. Sunday 24 June 2018 

3602 Bridge Avenue

When St. Patrick's was founded in 1853 it was in the town of Ohio City, a rival of the town across the river. The next year, Cleveland absorbed Ohio City. The present building is the second church, and began building in 1871. The stone, Sandusky blue limestone, was carried in wagons from the quarry weekly for two years. Limestone is sedimentary, and you will see fossils on the outside walls.

The building process was not quick. The interior was completed in 1881, the tower in 1902, and the church was enlarged in 1913. St. Patrick is not the oldest St. Patrick's in Cleveland, but it is the oldest Irish parish in Cleveland.

Cleveland Mass Mob XXVII — Saint John Nepomucene

Cleveland Mass Mob XXVII
St. John Nepomucene
Pentecost Sunday
9 o'clock 20 May 2018

Fleet Avenue & East 50th

John Nepomucene is not easy for everyone to say, the Czech version is Jan Nepomuk. He is the patron of the seal of confession. John *c.1345, 1393† was thrown into the Vltava River (which runs through the capital city, Prague) by the order of the king, Wenceslaus IV[not the one in the carol]. Wenceslaus wanted to know the confession of his queen. This is why the iconography has John holding a finger to his lips. His feast day is the 16th of May. 

It is common when people have settled in America to have parishes named after national patrons. Irish parishes in towns and cities across the land have SS. Bridget, Patrick, Colman, Columbkille, Brendan, Malachy. Polish parishes have SS. Stanislaus, Casimir, Hedwig, Adalbert, Josaphat, Our Lady of Czestochowa. Hungarians named parishes after saints Elizabeth, and Stephen. Everyone names parishes after Mary, and often Saints Joseph, Peter and Paul.

Bohemia is the largest Czech province, and in Cleveland (and elsewhere) Bohemian was synonymous with Czech. The other two provinces are Moravia, and Silesia. The Czechs named parishes after SS. Wenceslaus, John Nepomuk, and Adalbert (some saints are patrons to more than one nation).

Cleveland has three remaining parishes founded by Czechs: St. John Nepomucene, and Our Lady of Lourdes (both in what was Newburgh, and now is called Slavic Village); and St. Adalbert (ClevelandMassMob III). Until recently, the west side had St. Procop, and Maple Heights had St. Wenceslaus. Earlier, there had been a St. Wenceslaus on Broadway. The highways took that parish, and St. Martin. Holy Family was also on the east side and closed in the 1990s.

Cleveland Mass Mob XXVI — Saint Augustine

Cleveland Mass Mob XXVI  

 Saint Augustine

10 a.m. Sunday 15 April 2018

2486 West 14th Street

 

Cleveland Mass Mob has been asked to return for another season. We will first revisit Saint Augustine's. Saint Augustine's is well known for its Christian ministries to the poor.  The ten o'clock Mass will have American Sign Language. It must be remembered that each celebration of Mass is not an indistinguishable, interchangeable clone of every other Mass. Each parish has its own personality and chrism. If you have not participated at a Mass for the Deaf, you cannot appreciate its beauty, and sincerity.

The local press has for many years visited St. Augustine's dining room to show the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Saint Augustine feeds the hungry every day, and does many other acts of charity (remember 'charity' is another word for love of others). People need to eat more than twice a year, and St. Augustine always needs help. If you can aid, it will be welcomed.

 

 

finis

All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven. — Ecclesiastes iii.1.

Cleveland Mass Mob XXV — Saint Emeric

Cleveland Mass Mob XXV 

Saint Emeric

11 a.m. Sunday 13 November 2016

1860 West 22nd

stamp mural blessed by Josef Cardinal Mindszenty

The name 'Emeric' in Italian is 'Amerigo', in Spanish and Portuguese 'Américo', over time the new world became 'America'. Saint Emeric (Imre) is the west side Hungarian (Magyar) parish. The interior of the church is, perhaps, Cleveland's prettiest small Catholic church still extant (sadly St. Lawrence, its competitor in compact beauty is no longer).

Historically, it inherited some items from Cleveland's only French parish, Annunciation. Its current location involved a transfer of land with the Van Swerigen brothers, who were building a train terminal and train lines.

As a cultural center the parish houses Hungarians of all faiths in dance, scouts, and other organisations. This was the last parish to be closed (under protests and appeals), and the last one to re-open. St. Emeric's became an international cause célèbre in their ultimately successful struggle.

Cleveland Mass Mob XXIV — Our Lady of Mount Carmel West

Cleveland Mass Mob XXIV

Our Lady of Mount Carmel West

5 p.m. Saturday 24 September 2016

West 70th & Detroit

Our Lady of Mount Carmel—West began as a mission of Saint Rocco’s parish, both Italian nationality. Our Lady had a chapel in 1926. In 1949, the present church was built. In 1966, Our Lady of Mount Carmel became a parish. Churches have different ranks, and they can change, and change back. Italian Mass is said in the parish. Some parishioners are Latin Americans. Both parishes are staffed by he Mercedarian order of priests. Both still have active grade schools, which has become a rarity.

September 24th is Our Lady of Mercy, Madonna della Misericordia, Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, the patroness of the Mercedarians who staff the parish. Three women will take the religious habit (early in the day).

Cleveland Mass Mob XXIII — Saint Aloysius

Cleveland Mass Mob XXIII

Saint Aloysius

9.30 a.m. Sunday 21 August 2016

10932 St. Clair Avenue

St. Aloysius in Glenville began as a mission of St. Thomas Aquinas in 1898. Cleveland was expanding and annexed Glenville (and Collinwood) in 1910. The present church is the fifth building to convene the parish. This Italian renaissance basilica style church was erected in 1922. Inside there is so much to see in sacred art. It is one of the many churches worth seeing in Cleveland. If one likes Christian decorative arts, they will be favorably impressed.

Saint Agatha was a separate parish from 1945 to 1975. Saint Joseph Collinwood existed from 1877 to 1994. Nearby St. Philip Neri (begun 1914) was closed in 2008. Aloysius is the only Catholic parish in Glenville and West Collinwood. Demographics can change over the years. Glenville in the interwar period was a heavily Jewish neighborhood and had over twenty synagogues, some of those buildings have become churches. The neighborhood now is almost entirely African-American. St. Aloysius had been Irish. Later it was a favorite of  Bishop Clarence Issenmann, when his residence was in Bratenahl.

A parish is meant to endure through time, through generations. Membership has fluidity over time. Over the generations, a continuing new community arrives; sometimes with familial continuity, and sometimes with new introductions. A Sunday Mass at St. Aloysius is  a warm encounter. They understand that the 'sign of peace' is celebratory. It is a promenade of welcome done twice here.

Cleveland Mass Mob XXII — Saints Peter & Paul

Cleveland Mass Mob XXII

SS. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Catholic

10 a.m. Sunday 19 June 2016 (Father's Day)

2280 West 7th Street

(Tremont) 

Now, there are 24 self-governing sister churches in the Catholic Church. All equal, all valid, all in communion with each other and the Pope. Most Catholics are in the Latin church of the West. There are 23 churches in the East, most with a similar Liturgy and tradition of the corresponding Orthodox, or Oriental church. So an Ukrainian Catholic service, will look like an Ukrainian Orthodox service.

Now, in the greater Cleveland area we have a Melkite Byzantine* church (St. Elias), a Romanian Byzantine Catholic eparchy (diocese) in Canton with a parish on W. 65th (St. Helena), and a Maronite† church (St. Maron). There are two eparchies in Parma, with several parishes in the area. There is the Ruthenian Byzantine (Cleveland Mass Mob VIII was at Holy Ghost), and the Ukrainian Greek* Catholic.

The first Ukrainian congregation (1902) and church (1910) in Cleveland is SS. Peter and Paul. This is the mother church to St. Mary (1952) now in Solon, St. Josaphat (1959) Cathedral in Parma, St. Andrew in Parma (1972), and Pokrova (the Protection of the Mother of God) in Parma (1973).

Saints Peter and Paul church looks small from the outside, but stunningly beautiful on the inside. To most it will be a surprise, an ecclesiastic jewel. Over the years, murals, and a stained glass window commemorating a millennium of Christianity has been added. Before 1956 the church had an onion dome, it is now a steeple.
______________________
*Byzantine and Greek are here synonymous
† Maronite has no corresponding church

Cleveland Mass Mob XXI — Saint Elizabeth

Cleveland Mass Mob XXI

Saint Elizabeth of Hungary

11 o'clock  Pentecost Sunday
May 15, 2016
9016 Buckeye Road

Saint  Elizabeth is the first Hungarian (Magyar) Roman Catholic Parish in America beginning in 1892. The present church was begun in 1918, and dedicated on February 19, 1922. The church and its limestone dome and towers are modelled after Rome's baroque Sant'Agnese in Agone. The beauty and importance of the building earned it a place in 1976 on the National Register of Historic Places.

Cleveland is the most important place of Hungarian settlement in the new world. The Hungarian hierarchy (in Esztergom) had promised that Hungarian speaking priests will always be available for Cleveland. As is so with other people:  ethnicity, religion and culture are bound together. A few years ago there were several Hungarian Catholic parishes in Cleveland, Akron, Barberton, Orange, Elyria, and Lorain. To-day, there are only the two in Cleveland:  St. Elizabeth, and St. Emeric.

Cleveland Mass Mob XX — Saint Casimir

 Cleveland Mass Mob XX
Saint Casimir
11.30 a.m. Sunday, March 13, 2016
8223 Sowinski Avenue

Once you visit a parish, sometimes you go again.  Over this past year it was suggested to mob particular churches, "you should go to St. Michael's", "you should go to St.Colman's".  We did—last year.  With every mobbing, there are people whom do not realise there has been several mobbings in the past.  One lady has told me at two different mobbings that we should re-visit churches, because some people had not been to them. The second time she told me, "go back to Casimir".  So...

 Saint Casimir 125 years 1891-2016+

(image borrowed and altered from St. Casimir Hammond Indiana)

Cleveland Mass Mob XIX — Saint Augustine

Cleveland Mass Mob XIX

 Saint Augustine

10 a.m. Sunday 22 November 2015

2486 West 14th Street

Saint  Augustine began just before the War for the Preservation of the Union. In 1860 it was a mission church, parish status came after the war in 1867. The original church building, though expanded was still too small. In contrast to recent history, a former Protestant church was converted for Catholic use, the old Pilgrim Congregational Church (then called Jennings Road Congregational) begun in 1865 became Saint  Augustine's in 1896. The negotiations for sale and purchase took some time, for the trustees and membership, and neighboring Protestant churches did not want to sell to Catholics. Originally the church had a steeple, it was destroyed by lightning and a resultant fire in December of 1918.

St. Augustine c.1896-1918

The old South Side (Tremont) suffered during the Great Depression, as did much of the country. After WWII many people moved to larger homes elsewhere, and the construction of highways further de-populated the area.

Christ of the Breadlines (after Fritz Eichenberg), in the basement dining room

In the 1960s a Spanish Language Liturgy was offered. That ministry eventually came to St. Michael's. Since then, St. Augustine's has become the ministry for the deaf community, the blind community, and welcomes all with any problems physical, mental, and spiritual. Its hunger center is noticed by the local television stations each Thanksgiving and Christmas. There has been a generation of new reporters to Cleveland that have come for the annual stories, but people are fed every day. St. Augustine's is known nationally for its good works, and help is always needed. The Nuns on the Bus tour stopped by in June 2012 to speak for "faith, family, and fairness" as elements to consider in the federal budget.

June 26th 2012

Cleveland Mass Mob XVIII — Saint James

Cleveland Mass Mob XVIII
Saint James (Lakewood)
10.30 a.m. All Saints
Sunday 1 November 2015
17514 Detroit Avenue

At the turn of the XXth century, population was spreading outward from Cleveland along Detroit Avenue. Bishop Ignatius Horstmann allowed many parishes to be created, at the time of his death (1908) St. James was chartered for the village of Lakewood. The present church was slowly built from 1925 to 1935, with the inside murals finished in 1944.

Fr. Michael Leahy went to Italy in 1924 to look at churches. If you consult art history books (ones for introductory art history), you will find the interior of St. James Lakewood is closely modelled after the cathedral of Monreale Sicily, and touches of Cefalu inside and out, XIIth century Norman-Byzantine (or Sicilian Romanesque) style. St. James also has some arabesques in outside ornamentation. The Great Depression (under Hoover) slowed construction, but Leahy was very shrewd in purchase and payment, and got great value in material and workmanship. Unfortunately that ability has not been retained over the last several years in which leaky roofing has done much damage to the frescoes.

The value of materials that this church is built from is greater than any Catholic church anywhere in the area. The varieties of stone should excite the geologist: more marbles than most would recognise (Levanto, Chiampo Perlato, Carrara, Botticino, Verona, Porta Santa, Rosato, Belgian, Numidian), and there is Algerian onyx, Roman travertine. And on the outside: Minnesota granite steps, Indiana limestone walls, Berea rainbow granite columns with sandstone capitals.

The eight pink columns (of 18) in the nave are of Porta Santa marble.  Porta Santa means holy doors, the ones in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The stone was quarried on the Greek island of Chios. These columns were part of some ancient structure, and now are in Lakewood. There are only four churches that have used this stone: St. Peter's and St. John Lateran in Rome, Saint Mark's in Venice, and St. James in America.

Under the period of parish evisceration, St. James had its last Mass on 27 June 2010. The Homecoming Mass was 25 July 2012. As with all the churches re-opened by Rome, the hiatus did great damage to the parish.