Bid to Save 174-year-old East Village Catholic Church

At one time, Most Holy Redeemer was a thriving East Village parish, built by German immigrants in the mid-19th century, and even in its later years in the 21st century, it served as the administrator assigned to oversee other troubled nearby Roman Catholic parishes.

But now the 174-year-old church on East 3rd Street between Avenues A and B is itself in danger of closing. The parish no longer has a pastor, and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese said the last Mass to be celebrated there will be Sept. 1.

”It’s a lovely church,” said one elderly worshipper when Our Town stopped by on Aug. 29th days before its closure date. She was the sole person in the beautiful church, designed by an architect named Walsh and completed in 1851. “Nobody knows what is going to happen,” she said. “Maybe they will keep it open as a landmark. Maybe they will sell it.”

The Village Preservation Society said it is working with parishioners and other preservation groups to save the historic church.

“The church was once one of the city’s tallest structures, founded in 1844 by German-speaking Redemptorist missionaries amid the growing German influx in the neighborhood then called Kleindeutschland, and completed in 1851,” said the Village Preservation Society in a recent newsletter, trying to marshal support to save the historic structure.

It was dubbed the “German Cathedral of New York,” and served immigrants in a section once known as “Little Germany.”

The church “had a major impact over more than the last century and a half, from the introduction of Gregorian chants at Catholic churches to innovations in electricity for religious structures and fire safety citywide,” said the Village Preservation Society.

The East Village Community Coalition and the Tenement Museum are urging the Landmarks Preservation Commission to landmark the building. Parishioners held a vigil outside the church on Aug. 22, and Carlina Rivera, before she resigned her City Council seat to head up the NYS Association for Affordable Housing, had urged the landmarking.

But the end may be near. A sign hangs on the office door of the rectory on East 3rd Street saying simply “Rectory closed.”

The doors to the church remained open on a Friday morning, Aug. 29, when Our Town Downtown stopped by and spotted the lone worshipper sitting in one of the pews before making her way down the steps.

At one point, Most Holy Redeemer was made the administrator for St. Brigid’s Church on East 8th Street and Avenue B, as well as for the Church of the Nativity, which was merged into MHR in 2015.

While the German immigrants were building Most Holy Redeemer, famine-era Irish were building St. Brigid’s a few blocks away. But changing demographics hurt both parishes. Cardinal Egan planned to sell St. Brigid’s to a developer due to declining parish rolls and costly repairs needed to shore up the church and the school. But local outcry and a court order stopped the building from being knocked down in 2007, and eventually a secret benefactor put up $20 million to repair and save the historic St. Brigid’s church. MHR has not been as lucky.

A year ago, Most Holy Redeemer had its role as administrator stripped away when its then-pastor, Father Sean Connolly, was transferred to the upscale parish of St. Margaret of Cortona-St. Gabriel in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Administration of St. Brigid’s and Most Holy Redeemer fell to another parish, Immaculate Conception on East 14th Street.

To this day, the vestibule of Most Holy Redeemer carries copies of the Catholic Worker, founded during the Great Depression by social activists Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. Most Holy Redeemer was Day’s home parish.

Day has been declared a “servant of God” by the Catholic Church which is a first step on the road to sainthood. She was a tireless advocate for the poor and the newspaper she co-founded has been published continuously since 1933 and has not raised its price since. It still carried the price of 1 cent, or 25 cents for an annual subscription (30 cents for foreign subscriptions). Efforts to reach managing editors Amanda Daloiso or Joanne Kennedy were not successful. A call to Peter Maurin Farm in Marlboro, NY, was not returned by press time.

Father Pat Moloney, who runs Bonitas House, a rehabilitation center on East 9th Street, has long been active in parish life on the Lower East Side.

”It’s sad when any church closes,” he said. “In my opinion, the mistake was made when Father Lorenzo Ato left as pastor of St. Brigid’s several years ago and the Archdiocese started concentrating a lot of its resources on Most Holy Redeemer.”

He said of MHR, ”At one point, it was a thriving parish run by the Redemptorist Order with a church and a school and a monastery.”

But if the plan is to sell off the property, it may be more complicated than usual because while the church building has been administered by the Archdiocese, the land underneath it may not be. “To my knowledge, the land is still owned by the Redemptorist Fathers,” said Father Moloney.

The Archdiocese had not returned calls by press time.

Even landmarking the building may not be enough to save it. “The Landmarks Preservation Commission has had a poor track record of preserving churches, synagogues, and other historic sites in the East Village in recent years, and in general has become increasingly averse to preserving endangered historic sites,” said the Village Preservation Society. Still, it was urging people, “Join our campaign to preserve the Most Holy Redeemer Church and its ongoing service to and legacy in the East Village.”